


The After After Life

by zoicite



Category: Being Human (UK)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 22:38:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoicite/pseuds/zoicite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever is going on with Hal and Tom, it’s been going on since before Alex stepped into their lives.  Whatever is going on, it's going to continue going on the way it's always been unless Alex intervenes. </p><p>Alex is tired of watching and waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [croissantkatie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/croissantkatie/gifts).



“Well, we’re out of food,” Alex announces as she pushes through the swinging doors and into the dining room. “But if someone can figure out how to prepare wood stakes for supper, I’ve found two in the salad drawer and they still look fresh.” 

Tom and Hal are standing by the bar staring at each other. She can’t see Hal, just the back of his head, but she can see Tom. His eyebrows are set in a serious line across his forehead and his mouth is turned down in a frown. Tom sniffs, but other than that neither of them acknowledges her entrance. Alex stops and her hands, up and gesturing to accompany her joke, fall to her sides.

“What’s happened?”

Hal looks up and then turns. His brow furrows and his mouth works silently, as though he’s trying to translate something. Tom shakes his head. He’s still focused on Hal and he’s glaring.

“Okay,” Alex says. “I’ve clearly walked into the middle of something. Sorry, please, continue.” She pulls out a chair and sits.

“Steaks?” Hal asks, finally.

“Stakes,” Tom snaps. “They’re my stakes, all right? What of it?”

“Oh,” Hal sighs. His shoulders fall as though he’s deflating a little. “Those. Tom, why are you still storing wooden stakes in the kitchen?”

"You ain't my nanny, Hal," Tom points out. It doesn’t quite seem like a proper answer to Hal’s question, so Alex guesses Tom must have switched back to whatever it was they were arguing about before Alex so rudely interrupted; whatever it was that started Tom glaring like he’s trying to burn holes through Hal with his eyes. "And I ain't a child. I don't need you minding me."

Alex raises her eyebrows. She feels a bit far from the action sitting here at the table. She slides off her chair and moves to the sofa for a better view just as Hal holds up his hands and starts to shake his head.

"I never said I –"

"And what about Alex?” Tom interrupts. He points to Alex, his finger accusing. 

“Hey, I’m just –“ Alex starts, but she doesn’t get far before Tom continues, cutting in: “You're gonna accompany her when she goes to see her family too?" 

Hal pauses and the corner of his mouth threatens to pull up into a smile. He nods.

"Yes, actually. I thought that would be something we would face together, the three of us," Hal says. "I thought Alex might welcome the support of her friends."

Tom glances toward Alex and Alex shrugs, nods. She actually has assumed that Tom and Hal would come with her when she returns home to announce she’s risen from the dead. It’s the last thing she wants to do on her own. Hal's right about that. 

"This is like when you said Alex couldn't go to Paris then," Tom says, quickly finding a new angle. Alex nods again. She still doesn’t know what this is about, but if it’s about Hal hovering and treating Tom as though he’s a child, then yes, Paris is a better example. Alex was a ghost. She didn't really need Hal telling her where she could and couldn't go.

"Look," Hal says. "I just don't think –"

"Maybe me and Alex will just go to Paris without you now," Tom suggests. He sniffs again and then shrugs. "How would you like that, huh, Hal? Me and your girlfriend in Paris?"

Alex tries not to smile. This is what Tom and Hal do. She hasn’t figured out yet what’s started this specific argument, but this is how it always goes. They let these things escalate until they become ridiculous. They pick at each other on purpose, seem to enjoy getting each other riled up. They work at it until it seems inevitable that one of them will explode, that stakes will be raised, punches thrown, or… well, Alex has her theories. It’s all so obvious to her, she wonders at how they can both still be so blind to it. 

"C'mon, Alex," Tom says. "We'll get Allison and then we'll go, just the three of us. I bet I can sneak us onto the train and we won’t have to pay or nowt. Won't cost us a thing."

Ah, there we are. This is about Allison. Of course.

Alex is failing to suppress her smile. Hal shoots her a look and she shrugs. 

"I can't exactly turn down a proposition like that now, can I?" Alex points out. "Let me just grab my jacket, Thomas, and then we can be off."

Tom nods and starts to turn, moving toward the door, but Hal stops him, a hand on Tom's arm before it slides down to hold Tom at the wrist. Tom stops, but doesn't yank his hand away. Alex settles back onto the sofa, curls her leg beneath her and waits; she expected this.

Hal shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath. 

"Please," he says. "Hear me out. I just don't think that we should be running off alone right now, not until we're sure. I'm not saying that you may never go, I'm merely suggesting that you wait until after the full moon, and that you let us accompany you."

Tom's mouth pulls back down into a frown as he reaches up with his free hand to scratch at his head. 

"You think there's something that ain't right about this?" Tom asks, a bit calmer now.

"No, I – not this. Not us. But what if Allison is still a werewolf?" Hal asks. "You don't know for sure that this is – we don't know anything for certain, not yet."

"What do you mean?" Tom asks. "You're saying it's only us that's human and there's still other ghosts and vampires and wolves out there?"

"Yes," Hal says. "Yes, that's what I'm saying. What if this is something that only changed us? What if you tell Allison that the wolf is gone, that she's human, and then she transforms when she isn't prepared for it? She might hurt someone.

Tom pauses, thinks on Hal's argument. 

"She'd never forgive herself," Tom concedes. "She'd never forgive me, neither."

“It’s best to wait,” Hal nods. “Just a few weeks, that’s all.”

Tom shakes Hal away from his wrist and then holds his hand out for Hal to take it properly. Alex is sure that she has never met anyone who loves a good handshake as much as Tom and Hal. 

Hal accepts Tom’s offered hand and Tom folds his fingers over Hal’s, but he doesn’t shake, not yet. He isn’t quite finished. 

"The day after the full moon, I'm getting on a train and going to visit her," Tom says. "You ain't coming with me."

Tom and Hal stare at each other. Alex waits. She thinks – she thinks it’s interesting how much Tom has changed. He's grown up a lot since she first met him at the café. Hal too. They've all changed so much. 

Tom’s face shifts then, just slightly. His expression goes a few degrees softer, his mouth relaxes a little, and Alex looks to find what’s changed. 

It doesn’t take her long to find the cause: Hal’s thumb sliding slowly back and forth across the skin of Tom’s wrist. It's an unmistakable caress. Tom shifts his weight and then presses his lips together, but in the end he stands his ground and waits for Hal's response.

"All right," Hal concedes, finally. "After the full moon."

There it is, the end of the argument, and for some reason it feels a bit like defeat. It pulls a little, a strange feeling there in Alex’s gut. Still, she watches as a smile spreads wide across Tom’s face. The feeling’s probably hunger. They really need to address the current food situation.

Tom pumps Hal’s hand twice in his, and even once the handshake has been completed, Alex notices that they linger there before falling away from each other. Eventually Tom nods and then moves toward the stairs. His hands touch Hal’s shoulders for just a moment as he slides between Hal and the stools at the bar. Hal’s shoulders are stiff beneath Tom’s fingers. He catches Alex’s eye and then looks away, steps forward to give Tom more room to pass. Tom’s hands fall away. 

He’s in the hallway when he changes his mind, stops and returns to the room. 

“That’s why I keep stakes in the salad drawer,” Tom concludes. 

“What?”

“You just said it, we don’t really know, do we? We’re human, but the world might still be full of vampires. Always be prepared, McNair said.”

“Right,” Hal says with a nod. “Good thinking, Tom.”

Tom is still smiling as he returns Hal’s nod, and then he’s gone, his feet loud as he bounds up the stairs. Hal watches Tom leave and then turns to Alex, moves to sit beside her on the sofa. He sits close, closer than he ever would have dared before they were human. Alex sets her hand on his knee and he doesn’t flinch away from her. His hand comes down to settle over hers.

“You think that’s true?” Alex asks. “About vampires and werewolves and ghosts?”

“I don’t know,” Hal admits. They haven’t really tried to reach out to anyone else to find out. They’ve been so busy with each other, they haven’t thought much about the rest of it at all. 

This is the first time in the two weeks they’ve been human that Tom has mentioned Allison, except in passing, and suddenly Alex wonders if it was something like this, Alex’s hand on Hal’s knee, Hal’s fingers covering hers, that prompted it. They’re taking things slow, Hal and Alex, and it is largely inaccurate what Tom said before about Alex being Hal’s girlfriend, but even so, if not for these reminders to Tom that that might be where they’re headed, how long might they have stayed, holed up here, just the three of them? 

“Why would it just be us?” Alex presses. “You said that our curses were tied to the Devil. By defeating him, the curses no longer exist, right? It should be for everyone, not just the three of us.”

“I don’t know,” Hal says again. 

Alex looks down at Hal’s hand over hers. She feels his fingers, warm where they cover her skin. It still surprises her, being able to feel things again. It felt like – she was just getting used to being a ghost, to not really being _there_ and now she’s back and – 

“And how was my curse tied to the Devil anyway? I was just dead, wasn’t I?”

Hal’s quiet for a moment as he thinks about his response. “Perhaps it isn’t – perhaps that’s why a ghost was needed to complete the trinity. Maybe a supernatural being that’s outside of the Devil’s power was required to bring his curses against him. I don’t – I admit that I didn’t pay much attention to the specifics the first time around.” He trails off, shakes his head. 

“Maybe,” Alex agrees. Maybe they should be looking for answers instead of holing up here, avoiding everything else. Maybe how it happened is important. Maybe there’s something they’re missing here. Sometimes she catches herself thinking that maybe it’s all too good to be true.

“Maybe it’s time I go talk to my family.” 

It was the very first thing she planned to do, after eating all of the food she could get her hands on, but she’s been human for two weeks and she hasn’t gone, she hasn’t phoned, she hasn’t done anything but hide herself here, surrounded by Hal and Tom. She’s been doing exactly as Tom had until today, and if Tom’s starting to reach for the outside world, then it’s probably time Alex gets over whatever it is that’s keeping her from returning to the people she’s wanted most since she died and just… get on with it already. 

“Yes,” Hal says. “Of course.”

“Or do I have to wait until after the full moon?” Alex asks. 

She’s joking, of course, and it works. He turns to look at her and a smile pulls at his lips. His fingers curl against the back of her hand and then settle again, and then his thumb strokes across her skin. She looks down, watches the movement of his fingers over hers, affectionate and warm, and thinks of his hand wrapped around Tom’s moments before, the swipe of Hal’s thumb across Tom’s wrist.

She presses her lips together, wets them with the tip of her tongue. Hal’s thumb slides across her skin again, and she pulls her hand away, slides it out from beneath his and folds it in her own lap. She folds her other hand in to touch the spot where Hal’s fingers had been. They’re taking things slow and –

“You don’t want him to go at all, do you?” Alex asks.

Hal scoffs. “I think he should wait a few more weeks, that’s all.”

She sometimes wonders how it was with them at the time that she came into their lives. It seemed that Tom was just getting to know Allison then. Did Hal approve of their budding relationship? Was he jealous or odd about it; enough so that when Alex walked in, he was able to convince himself that spending time with her might be good for him? 

Alex continues as though Hal hasn’t protested. “There’s really nothing holding us together anymore, is there? We can do whatever we want. I can go back to my family. Tom can go to Allison. And you can – “ 

That’s probably the whole point, isn’t it? Who else does Hal have? There is no one else. Of course he doesn’t want them to go. But that isn’t it either, not really. There’s more to it than that. There’s more to the way that Hal looks at Tom, to the way that his touch starts careful and safe, but his fingers linger anyway. 

“If we stick together now, it’s just because we want to, isn’t it?”

“I suppose that it is,” Hal agrees.

Whatever is going on with Hal and Tom, it’s been going on a lot longer than this. It’s been going on since before Alex stepped into their lives. She saw it at the museum and the hotel, she saw it in the intensity of their arguments, and the quickness of their fights. She saw it in the way that Hal leered at Tom even once they’d given up on each other, even as Alex held them apart to stop them from killing one another. She sees it reflected in the way that Hal looks at her, in the touch of Hal’s hand over hers, and the way that they argue and clash. 

She thinks that if she hadn’t pressed it, Hal never would have pursued anything with her. She thinks that if she doesn’t press it, Hal and Tom will continue on just as they are. 

Maybe it will be fine. Maybe that’s how they work and they can go on like that indefinitely. That might be true. But it could just as easily be temporary, a holding pattern. Eventually it’ll tear them apart, push them away from each other if it continues to sit here unaddressed. Maybe Tom will start to see Hal’s hand on Alex’s as a sort of rejection, whether he understands the root of the feeling or not. Perhaps eventually he will leave, assuming erroneously that there is nothing here for him at all. He’ll assume it’s what he’s supposed to do. Alex and Hal, Tom and Allison. And maybe that’ll be fine, but she’s sure that it means something the way that Hal’s hand lingers on Tom’s, the way their eyes burn hot during a fight, the way their stares make Alex shift and flush. 

Someone has to press. Alex has tried to discuss it all with Tom before and each time it has grown clear that Tom doesn’t understand his own heart, doesn’t recognize any of it, and wouldn’t know what to do with it, even if he did. And Hal – without the blood, Hal was a coward. He was a coward on blood as well, and even now, human against all odds, Hal isn’t much better.

“You know what,” Alex says, before she can over think it all and decide to back down. “I’m just going to come out and say it. What’s with the handshake thing anyway? You and Tom and your love for, you know, shaking hands.”

Now seems as good a time as any to bring it up.

Hal frowns. “It’s a common gesture of greeting or agreement.”

“Hm,” Alex shrugs. “It’s more than that with you two though, isn’t it?” 

“Yes,” Hal agrees. “It’s a show of respect, trust, and friendship.”

Alex nods. She’s going to have to push a little harder to get at her point. “And it’s safe too, right? It’s safer than a physical fight or a hug. Less contact.”

Hal pauses. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, look at the two of you. You still get all weird around each other. Look how much you’ve been through together, and a handshake still means that much? Most people upgrade to hugging eventually. Most blokes would start with that handshake, and then they’d pull you into a hug, smack a hand on your back all manly-like. They don’t just stand there like they’re afraid to move, like the fact that their hands are touching might be enough to paralyze them.”

“I’m not following,” Hal says. Hal’s fingers have curled in against his leg now. They pinch at the denim of his trousers.

“Really?” Alex asks. “I think you are.”

She touches his hand, slides her thumb over the side of his wrist, just as he did to Tom and then again to her. His fingers stretch out and then begin to tap against his knee.

“The handshake signified the resolution to our argument,” Hal says. “No more, no less. If you’re suggesting that I – are you suggesting that – ?“

Yes, Alex thinks, her thumb rubbing circles against his skin, and yes. She doesn’t say it, but it doesn’t matter. Hal continues on as though she’s spoken. 

“That’s ridiculous,” Hal scoffs. He pulls his hand away from her.

“You’re cute when you’re flustered,” Alex notes. She leans in and kisses his cheek, the press of her mouth light and chaste, his skin warm beneath her lips. He’s distracted and he starts at her touch, turns to look at her, surprised. 

“You could tell him,” Alex suggests. “You don’t have to make up these excuses.”

“They aren’t excuses,” Hal insists, eyebrows high. “I believe it to be a valid concern.”

“Tell him that you’re afraid he’ll leave,” Alex says. “And if he asks you what there is for him here, you tell him that there’s you.” It had worked for her, hadn’t it? 

“And what then?”

“And then we do just what we’re already doing,” Alex says. “We take it slow and we see what happens, with the two of us and with Tom.”

Hal stares straight ahead. His lips pinch together and then relax. Alex’s stomach rumbles.

“We need to deal with the food situation,” she continues. “But I think this is something we should talk about some more, yeah? Before the full moon.”

“You’re always – “ Hal starts, and then he stops, laughs and shakes his head. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I’m getting Tom and we’re going shopping,” Alex says. She pats Hal’s knee as she stands from the sofa. “Hurry up and write a list. When we get home, you can cook for us.” 

Hal isn’t a very good cook if Alex is honest, but he’s better than Tom or Alex.

“And then later, we’ll talk,” Alex concludes as she heads toward the stairs.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Hal calls after her. 

“Oh, there is,” Alex breathes. She takes the steps two at a time.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Alex did after Hal looked into that mirror and confirmed that it was all true, they really were human, was to reach for Tom and pull him into a hug. He felt solid against her, warm. She could smell sweat, faint on his neck. She could barely remember the last time she smelled anything at all, and she held him closer and pressed her face to his shoulder. His body was hard and unyielding against hers. She could _feel_ him. 

Tom hugged her back right away, wrapped his arms tight around her. She’d hardly known him before she died, but now Tom hugged her so tight that there was no doubt she was important to him; she was his family. The vials of blood strapped to his chest were hard between them, uncomfortable, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to let go.

She did let him go eventually, and when she did, she immediately reached for Hal. She didn’t let herself stop to over-think it. She reached for him and pulled him towards her. 

“Oh,” Hal said, but he hugged her too, his hands light on her arms and then, after a moment, her back. She hugged him tighter to make up for his hesitance.

When she stepped away from Hal they just stood there, the three of them, smiling at each other. Alex wiped at the corner of her eye. It was only a wee bit of crying, but she laughed at herself for it anyway. It wasn’t until she stopped that she began to register the awkwardness happening in front of her. Tom and Hal weren’t hugging. They were just standing there looking at each other and once in a while at Alex, unsure what to do with themselves. 

They’d been through a lot. Hal had done things that – and Tom has almost – and it wasn’t really the time for any of this. This shouldn’t be a celebration. Rook’s body was still there, lying on the floor. It wasn’t time to revel in this at all, but still. 

“Come on then,” Alex said, but neither Hal nor Tom moved. 

She wondered what they might do if she wasn’t there. It wasn’t the time to talk about what had happened. That would come later, she was sure. Now, they –

Alex shifted and her jacket felt stiff and restrictive on her shoulders. She looked down at it and then reached for the zip. It slid down easily and she shrugged the jacket off her arms. 

“Fuck, it feels good to take that off,” she sighed as she tossed it onto the sofa. She caught sight of Rook again out of the corner of her eye. They were going to have to do something about the body.

Hal glanced at her, toward Rook, and then back to Tom. Tom looked down at himself, at the vials of werewolf blood strapped to his chest. He touched them with the tips of his fingers, and then he removed them and set the harness on the bar. He moved closer to Hal as he reached for the bar and Hal shifted. His hands fluttered and then he pushed them into the pockets of his trousers.

Tom noticed. For a moment it looked like he was going to move in towards Hal, but he didn’t, just kind of swayed there in his spot, and then he wiped his hand on his trousers and held it out. Hal stared at it for just a moment before he sighed (it sounded a lot like a sigh of relief to Alex), slid his hand from his pocket, and accepted. 

Alex had seen Tom hug a big naked werewolf, and he was barely self conscious about it once he was caught, but here they were again, awkward and uncomfortable with affection. 

“Inside, Bobby,” Tom had said when Alex interrupted that hug. “Always keep it inside.” And the statement struck her now as so unlike Tom. She wondered sometimes if that was Hal’s influence, if it was what they’d done all along.

Or maybe Tom just wasn’t ready to forgive. It was understandable, wasn’t it, after everything?

“Welcome back, mate,” Tom said, and Hal was quiet, but there was a nod and then the start of a smile. 

“All right,” Alex said. They could stand here all night while Hal and Tom figured out how to move forward, but if they were going to do that, then, “I need to borrow some different clothes.”

**

Alex leans against the counter beside Hal. She folds her arms across her chest, a very ‘Hal’ stance, and waits for him to acknowledge her. Hal’s chopping carrots, his shoulders hunched as he leans over the chopping board. He’s probably waiting for Alex to speak, assumes she came with a purpose, not just to watch the way his arms move, muscles shifting as the blade of the knife slices through the carrots again and again. It’s worth watching, he looks good, but he’s right; that isn’t why she’s here.

Eventually he pauses and turns to look at her. 

“Was there something that you needed?” he asks.

“Actually, yeah,” Alex says, nods as though it’s only just come to her. “Maybe you can help me work something out. I’ve been standing here asking myself, is he actually avoiding me? Is he really 500 something years old and avoiding me like an emotionally stunted teenager, or is the house really as filthy as he’s been pretending it is for the past two days? 

Hal leans back away from the counter, stands up straight. 

“You saw the layer of dust on the blinds,” he says. “I showed you.” 

It was more like he chastised them, but sure, ‘show’ works too. Despite the snippiness of his words, Hal smiles. It’s actually a rather warm smile but he isn’t fooling Alex at all.

“Yeah, you’re avoiding me,” Alex concludes. “All right, next question. Are you avoiding me because of something to do with me or are you avoiding me because you’re afraid I’m going to make you have that talk about Tom? Or is it a bit of both?”

Hal shakes his head. He resumes chopping the carrots. “I’m not avoiding you.”

Alex nods, lets her arms fall away from her chest to rest at the edge of the counter instead. “All right, then. Let’s talk.”

“Yes,” Hal agrees. The hand holding the knife stills and he turns toward her again. “When would you like to take the journey to Scotland? You mentioned that you were ready and I –“

“I want to talk about Tom,” Alex clarifies. “I want to talk about that handshake you shared the other day after you panicked about Allison. Did you talk to him like I suggested?” She knows that he hasn’t. He’s been burying himself in dusty blinds and disorganized cupboards and soup recipes. Hal would have made a cracking housewife in 1950. She guesses Leo probably thought so too.

“You want to talk about it now?” Hal asks. His face twists as though he’s disappointed in her.

“Why not now?” Alex returns.

Hal sighs. He’s chopping the carrots faster now, his pieces a little more uneven than they were before she interrupted. “I don’t know why you insist on pushing this ridiculous idea about me and Tom.”

“I don’t think it’s ridiculous,” Alex says. “I’ve told you. And based on how you’ve been acting since I brought it up, I don’t think that you think that either.”

Hal scoffs and shakes his head. 

Alex squints at him. She lifts a finger and points it toward his face. 

“You know, I was on to you right from the start?” She doesn’t get too close. Hal is still wielding a knife, after all.

Hal’s cranes his neck, pulls back away from her pointing finger. He exhales and then chuckles, tries to laugh her off.

“Oh, you were, were you?”

“That’s right,” Alex says, persistent. “I guessed right away, as soon as I saw the two of you together at that museum, which, by the way, was a really lame place to take me on a first date.”

They had no idea then, she could tell. There they were, Tom and Allison, Alex and Hal; a double date, and the joke was on Alex, wasn’t it? Who could ever hope to compete? Of course, she’s here. She’s competed rather well in this nonexistent competition, but that’s not –

And anyway, she didn’t really think it then, not seriously. She was just having a laugh, trying to make the best of an awkward date, but then she died and they invited her home and everything she’s seen since then has only confirmed the joke she’d originally made in passing. 

Back in the present, Hal starts to say “The museum wasn’t my –“ but he pauses when Tom pushes into the kitchen. He swallows, gathers himself, smiles toward Tom, and then says, “That wasn’t my idea.”

“Well, you went along with it,” Alex says. “You could have suggested something else.”

Hal scoops up the carrots and a pile of chopped leeks and drops them into a pot on the cooker. 

“Suggested something else?” Hal repeats. “Yes, that would have been just the thing, wouldn’t it? You and I, alone somewhere with dim lighting and plenty of dark corners, perhaps, where I could –“

He trails off and begins to stir the contents of the pot as though it requires all of his concentration.

“Erm,” Tom says, still paused at the center of the kitchen. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees. “Yeah, it’s fine. Hal’s right. It all worked out much better this way. Good planning.”

The look Hal gives her is sharp, a warning.

“What’s that? Chicken soup? Smells good,” Tom says, clearly trying to change the subject. He leans over Hal’s shoulder to get a look. 

Somehow, despite speaking first, loudly and pointedly, Tom still manages to take Hal by surprise and Hal starts at Tom’s sudden proximity. He moves quickly and the spoon that he’s holding hits against the edge of the pot and splatters broth onto his arm. 

Hal curses. “Jesus, Tom.”

“Sorry,” Tom says. He grabs the end of one of the carrots from the counter and pushes it into his mouth. It snaps loudly when he bites into it. He reaches for another piece and Hal swats at his hand.

“What?” Tom asks. 

Alex reaches out to touch his arm, but Tom just shrugs, apparently unfazed by Hal’s outburst. Still, Tom’s just being Tom, and Hal’s reaction is harsh. Tom’s always like this, a bit like an overgrown puppy (though Alex tries not to make dog-related analogies for Tom). He isn’t doing anything different really, and this time last week, Hal probably wouldn’t have reacted the way he just did to Tom touching his back or leaning over his shoulder. It’s just casual proximity, and from what Alex has seen, Hal didn’t react like that to Tom’s casual proximity unless there was some kind of expectation involved, such as when Alex started hugging them both after they turned human. That’s how it was all the time when they first met, so Tom tells her anyway, but not since Alex has been in the picture. Now Hal’s acting like Tom’s walking around with his favorite stake (She can’t remember if it was Thor or Duncan that was the favorite) raised and ready.

Alex smiles to herself as she tries not to twist that into anything suggestive.

“He’s frustrated with me, not with you,” Alex says, though it earns her another pointed look from Hal.

“I’m not frustrated with anyone,” Hal says. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

“On soup,” Alex says. “It doesn’t exactly require culinary precision, does it.”

“We used to make chicken soup all the time on the stove in the campervan,” Tom says and then he thinks it over and amends: “Well, once a month, really, when we finished with the chicken.”

“Yeah?” Alex asks, still smiling. She loves hearing stories about Tom’s life with McNair. She can tell that, whatever else might have been lacking, there was a lot of love there.

“The same chicken that you’d just taken on a walk through the woods?” Hal asks, frowning.

“Don’t make that face,” Tom says. “We washed it up first. We didn’t cook it with pine needles and bits of sticks on it.”

Alex tips her head toward Hal as she pushes away from the counter. 

“Snob,” she murmurs.

Hal hears her and he pretends to look hurt, but it isn’t long before he’s turning away. He doesn’t want them to catch that he’s smiling. 

**

She broached the subject with Tom not long after they first met. Hal was still tied to the chair. He was asleep; his fingers relaxed, his head tipped forward, mouth hanging open. Alex watched him from her stool. She did that a lot at the start, just sat there and watched. She had a lot to think about, a lot to work through, and some decisions to make. 

Hal looked peaceful like that, peaceful and a little funny with his mouth hanging open, lip heavy and chin slack. Asleep, he didn’t look like a monster at all. If you ignored the straps and the restraints he looked soft and…human. He hardly looked capable of –

“Oh great,” Tom said, as he walked into the room. “Finally. Maybe he won’t be as grumpy when he wakes back up.”

Alex smiled. That was unlikely. 

The chair had been Hal’s idea. He and Tom had drilled holes through the floor together (“Isn’t this place rented?” Alex asked, but they pretended they couldn’t hear her over the sound of the electric drill), set down the plastic sheeting, secured the posts for the straps. It was only later, after they’d already started, that they began to think about the rest of the logistics.

“There should be a better way of doing this, don’t you think?” Alex asked. “There’s that whole room in the cellar. Yesterday I watched the postman set the post at the edge of the garden, afraid to come to the door.” 

Tom shrugged. Hal was drooling a little and as they watched, a bit of saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth and onto his shirt. Tom reached out and swiped his thumb at the edge of Hal’s lip, then wiped his hand on his shorts and shrugged again.

She was still working Hal out, but she could tell, in what little time she’d known him, that Tom, at least, was a genuinely good bloke. She’d been a bit thrown by the whole wolf thing at first, sure, but he seemed nice enough, a bit naïve, a bit younger than his years about some things, but downright normal when you put him next to Hal.

The thing was – Hal was a snob, had the potential to be a bit of an arsehole and a creep, and was most certainly formerly a horrific mass murderer. She’d learned that much in the short time she’d known him. And yet she watched as Tom cared for Hal, as he stood by Hal, fed him, and yes, okay, maybe purposely missed Hal’s mouth a few times, but afterward he always made sure to carefully wipe down Hal’s face with a damp cloth. Hal squeezed his eyes shut at the indignity of it all, made rude remarks, but Tom really was dedicated to Hal. Tom didn’t even flinch the first time that Hal informed them through clenched teeth that there were certain basic needs that he would require help with. Tom merely walked out of the room and returned with a roll of toilet tissue, a bucket, and a towel.

Alex watched Tom as he skipped work and spent nights on the sofa so that Hal wouldn’t have to be alone. Alex assured Tom that she could watch Hal while Tom went to work, but Tom shook his head, said, “He ain’t your responsibility, he’s mine,” and stayed just the same. 

She watched Tom and she started to think that maybe her first impression hadn’t been as far off as she’d started to think; Hal really must not be so bad if Tom was able to care about him this much.

“He looks a lot nicer when he’s sleeping, don’t he?” Tom asked.

“Yeah,” Alex agreed. 

Tom sat on the arm of the sofa. Hal slept on and Alex shifted on her stool, turned so that she could see Tom a bit better. 

“Tom, can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “Of course you can, Alex.”

Tom was always so nice to her, so polite. Too polite, sometimes, and somehow that had become just another thing that made her wonder –

“How do you feel about blokes?”

Tom shrugged. “Fine, I guess.” 

“No,” Alex smiled. “I don’t mean in general. I mean – what did you call it last week? Courting? I mean, how do you feel about blokes when it comes to courting?”

“Oh,” Tom said, but before he could say anything else, Alex jumped back in. 

“We’re still getting to know each other, yeah, and I don’t know yet exactly how McNair might have – you seem very, well, traditional, you know?”

Tom shrugged again. “It’s a bit odd, but if they love each other then – why are you asking me?”

Now it was Alex’s turn to shrug. “I’m just trying to get a good handle on what it is I’m joining with here, that’s all.” 

She was going to find her body. She was going to tell her family how she died, and then she was going to holler and cheer when her door appeared, but it didn’t hurt to get to know Tom in the time she had before that happened. It didn’t hurt to try to understand them: a vampire and a werewolf sharing a house.

Tom smiled. She could tell he was still a little unsure of exactly what she meant.

“Alex, are you tryin’ to tell me you’re gay?” Tom asked. He ducked his head when he said it, scratched at the back of his neck.

Alex started, surprised, and then she laughed. “No,” she said. “I wasn’t saying anything about myself at all.”

“I don’t mind,” Tom assured her. “There’s people out there who probably think being a werewolf is pretty funny and odd, but that’s just ‘cause they don’t know any better. I reckon that’s how it is with people thinking that about gay folks too. It’s just ignorance, isn’t it. Just ‘cause you’re a bit different, ain’t nothing wrong about it.”

“No,” Alex agreed. She was smiling at him, and she knew it wasn’t the appropriate reaction to what he was saying, but she couldn’t help herself; she was completely charmed. “No, there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Tom nodded and then his eyebrows pulled tight. He pressed his lips together. “What I don’t understand is, if you’re gay, Alex, why were you chatting up Hal here in the first place?”

“I’m not – I wasn’t trying to tell you that I’m gay. I was – you know what? Never mind.”

**

They’re taking things slow, or they’re supposed to be, but all Alex wants is – she removed her fucking boots, she ate everything in the kitchen. She moved into the house finally, properly; a bed from the attic, a chair, and a wardrobe. She has clothes that are hers, shampoo in the shower, and a toothbrush by the sink. She slept for fourteen hours straight one night, and then hardly at all another, and she felt exhausted and dizzy and she loved every second of it. She took long showers, the water as hot as she could stand it. She – she touched herself and actually felt it, spent an entire afternoon locked up in her room wanking, and now all that’s left is to feel someone else. 

She catches herself staring at Hal’s mouth, remembering how he looked the last time he leaned in to kiss her. She can’t stop wondering how it would feel to kiss him now that she actually _can_ feel. That first kiss – it wasn’t real. It was a selfish lie, a betrayal. It should have turned her away from him for good, but his face as he leaned in, and his mouth, and she couldn’t feel it, not really, but it hadn’t mattered. She would have sat there kissing him for hours, ghostliness be damned. And now that she’s human, she –

They’ve decided to take it slow. They weren’t even going to discuss it until after she went to see her family, but it’s been more than two weeks and she hasn’t got up the courage to do that yet, and this… Hal isn’t in Scotland. He’s here with Alex. He’s here and he’s being just as avoidant as he ever was. He’s here, but he’s refusing to _live_ and if she can just get him to kiss her like he did that first time, she knows, can feel it in her heart and in her gut, that everything else will start to fall into place. 

She tastes all of the alcohol behind the bar (a little liquid courage never hurt anyone) and then she catches him in the corridor and pulls him into her room. 

“I have a room now,” she says. “It’s nice, having a room.”

She was going to wait until she saw her family to decide. Who was she kidding? She’s staying. Of course she is. 

“Alex.”

She moves in to kiss him and he reaches for her, his hands on her shoulders as he holds her at a distance.

“What are you doing?”

“Hal,” she says. It’s a mistake. He smells the alcohol on her breath and he shakes his head.

“You’re drunk.” His arms push out, holding her further from him. 

“So what?” Alex returns. She lifts her hands to touch his arms, her fingers sliding up toward his shoulders. “You were drunk the last time and that didn’t stop you, did it?”

He releases her and steps away.

“Hal,” she groans, frustrated. She reaches for him. “Come on. I’m joking.” She isn’t. Not really. She’s stating a fact, and frankly, it’s offensive and infuriating that he’s reacting as though she’s wounded him when – She pulls her hand back, steps away from him. She feels tight suddenly, hard and offended and angry. 

“Get out,” she says. 

“What?” Hal’s brow is furrowed, lips parted. 

“I said get out,” Alex repeats, louder this time. “I live here now. I’m taking up actual physical space here. This is my room, and right now I want you out of it.”

Hal stares at her, and he doesn’t look upset or wounded anymore, he just looks confused. She points to the door, shuts her eyes. She’s starting to count to ten when finally she feels him start to move, passing by her and stepping out into the corridor. He stops and she can feel him watching her. 

“What is it?” Alex asks. “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Hal says after a moment. “Good night.”

She pauses and opens her eyes. He shrugs, his hands rubbing against the thighs of his trousers. She’d expected something else.

“Good night,” she returns and then watches him walk down the corridor to his room.

**

Once, early on, Alex convinced Tom to join her at a pub not far from the hotel. They sat together at a table by the wall while Tom nursed a beer. Tom was oblivious to the stares he was getting, sitting at a seemingly empty table drinking and talking to himself. It was a good night for Alex, engaging Tom in increasingly animated conversation, at least until Hal got off work and arrived to break up the party. 

She tried to think about that, about Tom talking and laughing over a pint, and not about the fact that Hal killed everyone in that same pub just a few months later. She wonders sometimes if some of those same men laughing at Tom from their seats at the bar ended up blood on Hal’s tongue and dust beneath Tom’s stake.

**

There were a lot of things that they didn’t talk about. The manner in which Alex died was pretty high on the list. She guessed Tom and Hal ignoring that tension between them was probably another. The way Alex and Hal met was a third. They moved forward, pretended that Alex couldn’t see the heat in Tom’s eyes as he challenged Hal, pretended that Alex wasn’t still all dressed up for a date. 

Alex was pretty good at ignoring things, but not that good. She tried to bring it up, she tried to talk about it, but there was always something else, something with Tom, or with Hal, something at the hotel, or some other supernatural interference. They never got a chance to really sit down and discuss. Something always came up. 

Early on she caught Hal alone, sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. She sat down across from him, traced a scratch on the surface of the table, and then said, “So, erm, in that café, you weren't actually interested in me at all were you?” 

Hal looked up from his paper, his mouth a frown. 

”No, I was," Hal said, too quickly, instantly uncomfortable. 

"In my blood though," Alex translated. "You didn’t fancy me. I was – I knew I was pushing it when I came back with my number and all, but then you phoned and – I mean, I get it, I do. Or, at least, I get it now. Wish I’d got it then!” Her eyes were wide and then she smiled to show that it was a joke. It wasn’t really, it was – she did that, turned things into jokes.

“Alex –“

“No, you don’t have to do that. I just – I still feel a little stuck, you know?"

Hal gathered himself, sighed and moved his jaw around, all those normal Hal things, and then finally he licked his lips and he looked at her.

“It is difficult to know, sometimes, if it’s the person or the blood,” Hal admitted.

Alex nodded. It was what she expected. 

“And now?” 

Hal laughed, nervous, and looked away. 

“We don’t have to talk about it now,” Alex conceded, and she watched the relief flood Hal’s face. “But we should talk about it eventually.”

She should have pressed right then. 

She needed to know, but there was a part of her that really did feel stuck. She worried that, even if he admitted that he wasn’t ever interested, not in _her_ , she might still stay on like this, pining in this irrational way, like she never did when she was human. 

On the other hand, if he wasn’t interested, if he never was, why not just say it? Why not get it over with? Why string her along? It was no wonder she saw herself in Lady Mary. It was no wonder Mary gave her pause and made her think on her future here.

“You and Lady Mary are very different people,” Hal claimed, but they weren’t, were they? They weren’t very different at all. Hal didn’t kill Alex, not directly, but what difference did that make? Alex was stuck just the same.

There was something wrong with her. There were times when she was sure of it. Hal Yorke was a liar, a murderer, a snob, and an arsehole. She knew all of that and what was more, she’d seen most of it with her own eyes. If it wasn’t for Hal, she’d be home with her dad and her brothers. 

She’d be – she’d be what? What was she really doing there? Since her mum left she’d been stalling, treading water. She was a bit messed up over the whole thing. She could admit that now. She had enough distance. 

She’d quit her piano lessons, she stopped caring about her schooling, and she started hanging out with ‘inappropriate’ people. What was she doing with her life there? She was watching her brothers, yes, filling the place her mum had left, looking for a job, any job, and failing, itching to get out and see the world. Barry wasn’t exactly the world, or anywhere close to a destination of choice, but well, it was certainly something new. 

But was it really any better? She was glad she’d met Tom. She really liked Tom and sometimes she thought that she might be good for him, she thought he might really need her. But it wasn’t just Tom. There was Hal, and every time she thought that she understood him, every time that she managed to convince herself that there was good there, that he was trying, that his heart was in it and that she was justified in her affection, every single time something happened to turn it all on its head. First Crumb, then Lady Mary. What was next?

She’d seen him with her blood smeared across his face, pathetic and disgusting, and it should be the biggest turn-off in the entire world. It wasn’t and she couldn’t help but wonder what that said about her. 

Alex had tried to blame her mother for so much of what she didn’t like about herself, so much of what she didn’t understand. Alex blamed her mother for her own choices, but she’d promised herself she was done. She promised herself shortly before she met Hal, actually. Back home, she never would have given the odd guy singing to himself as he mopped the floor a café a second glance, but she thought – she’d sort of thought it might all go a bit differently than it did. 

And yet, if she was here with them in this house a year, two, five, if she really settled in and then one day it happened and her door appeared, would she even take it? 

**

She steps out of the bathroom, distracted, still rubbing a towel through her wet hair, and she barely makes it two steps into the corridor before she collides with Hal.

“Oh,” she says, hands flying to clutch at the towel she’s wrapped around herself. She stops and takes a step back.

Hal’s hands are up, palms held out toward her like some sort of surrender, or maybe self defense. 

“Sorry,” she says. “I was just going –“ she gestures down the corridor and to her room.

“I know,” Hal starts. “I was –“

He trails off and she squints at him.

“Have you just been standing here outside the door?” she asks. She’s not sure why she says it. He might have just come out of his room, but there’s something funny about the way he just trailed off, like he realized as he was speaking that whatever it was he was about to say was going to sound pretty weird. And now, now he’s looking at her funny, and she’s sure suddenly that that’s exactly what he was doing. “You’ve been standing out here while I was in there having a shower? That’s rather creepy, Hal.”

He shakes his head, looks down at the floor, then swallows and says, “I wanted to see how you were feeling after last night.”

“Good,” Alex shrugs. “I feel fine.”

“Good,” he says.

“I got a bit pissed, that’s all. What good’s a fully stocked bar if no one drinks from it once in a while? You know, when I was still a ghost and you were working at the hotel I used to sit down there, bored out of my skull, staring at those bottles. I’d think how if only I could, I’d take a swig from each one, and wouldn’t that make the afternoon more interesting? All of that alcohol, wasted on the two of you.” 

Hal just nods.

In fact, the night before was actually the second time she tried a taste from each bottle. The first time was one of those bored afternoons as a ghost. It didn’t exactly liven up the afternoon. Mostly it just made a big mess that she had to rush to wash up before Hal and Tom arrived home.

“Well,” Alex says. She smiles, and then she holds up the towel that isn’t wrapped around her body to remind him that she just got out of the shower and would like to get down the hall and to her room. She moves to slide past him, but he reaches for her, his hand coming up to hold her at the elbow.

“Alex,” he starts, and then he stops, apparently at a loss.

She sighs.

“Oh, no,” she says. They were doing so well. She’d thought that, being that they were all human now, that they could do this without it getting all weird. She should have known that Hal was – 

“I thought it was just Tom that had you acting all –“ she stops herself before she can say squirrelly. She hasn’t forgotten the last time. “You had me fooled, you know. Two weeks and I was beginning to think you actually weren’t going to be rubbish at this. That’s funny, isn’t it? That I thought –“

She doesn’t get to finish. Hal apparently remembers what he was doing here to begin with, and before she can get the rest of her words out, he has her back against the wall of the corridor. He’s close and he’s – they’re taking things slow. They’ve agreed to take things slow, but she’s been staring at his mouth for weeks. Perhaps he’s noticed. Trying to kiss him and then kicking him out of her room the night before must have finally started him thinking too, and now here he is and she – 

He kisses her, the press of his mouth soft and light to hers. He kisses her carefully, and then a little less carefully, and when the tip of his tongue brushes her lip, she feels lightheaded and weak-kneed. She can feel him; she can feel everything. She worried that building it up for months in her head could only lead to disappointment, but no, his lips are soft and full, his breath, hot and a little uneven. She drops the towel she’s been holding and brings her hands up to his face instead. He follows her lead and his kiss gets deeper, a good degree filthier, and there it is. She often wondered how someone so old could be so rubbish at so many things after, presumably, centuries of practice, and now she thinks it really was the blood holding him back, because Hal is not rubbish at this. He isn’t rubbish when it comes to kissing at all. His hands are twisted in her towel and she knows that at any moment it might free itself and fall away, joining the one she’s already dropped on the floor and leaving her standing here, naked beneath him in the corridor. So much for taking things slow. 

There are footsteps, loud on the stairs. It’s Tom, bounding toward them, and she means to pull away from Hal before Tom comes around the corner. She means to pull the towel tighter around her, pull herself together. Her brain registers Tom’s approach and she knows it’s time to end this, but her body is refusing to listen, and it isn’t until Tom says, “All right,” that Hal starts and lets Alex go.

The towel starts to slide now that Hal’s hands have left her, and Alex is quick to pull it tighter around her body and secure it beneath her arm. She runs a hand through her wet hair, and then laughs, nervous. Hal clears his throat. 

“All right,” Tom says a second time.

“Tom,” she starts, preparing to apologize. “I – “

“You can’t be clogging up the corridor like that,” Tom cuts in. “It’s a fire hazard.” He’s pretending that he’s annoyed, but he isn’t doing a very good job of it. The irritation is there in his tone, but his mouth twitches like he’s trying not to smile, and his face – well, he looks a bit flushed. Alex can only imagine how she must look to him.

Hal has gone from refusing to look at either of them to blatantly staring at Tom, his lips parted just slightly, once again at a loss for words.

Tom narrows his eyes at Hal, confused by Hal’s look, and then he comes toward them, slides between them until he’s managed to get past. Hal’s eyes fall shut as he presses himself to the wall, as far from Tom and Alex as he can get. Alex reaches for Tom, her hand sliding down his arm and then folding around his. Tom squeezes it tight for just a moment.

“I have to go to the toilet,” he admits. 

“Oh,” Alex says, and feels a bit stupid. Of course he does. Where else would he be headed. There’s nothing else down here. She releases his hand. “Sorry, go on then.” 

He smiles at her and then disappears into the bathroom and shuts the door. Alex turns her attention back to Hal. She’s messed up his hair running her fingers through it. He presses his lips together and then he nods. She isn’t sure what he’s agreeing to. 

She remembers Hal’s mouth on hers, her towel threatening to fall to the floor. She imagines Hal pushing closer, her legs coming up to wrap around him. And then she sees his face as he stared at Tom, the way he pushed himself up against the wall, out of reach.

“You enjoyed fighting with Tom, didn’t you?” Alex asks. She doesn’t mean to say it. It’s one of those things – she’s been thinking it on and off for weeks and she’s good at ignoring things, but she’s never been that good. She wants nothing more than to tear off Hal’s clothes, but she doesn’t want that, not yet. She really does want to take this slow, and somehow saying this feels safer than not saying anything.

“What?” Hal asks just as Tom emerges from the bathroom.

“Well,” Tom says, loudly. “I reckon I’ll go back downstairs so the two of you can get back to snogging up the corridor.”

Hal closes his eyes again, but this time he just looks tortured. 

Alex laughs. “I’d better get dressed,” she says.

Hal waits until Tom’s headed back down the stairs and then he says, “Wait,” and reaches for Alex’s arm. “Fighting with Tom when?” 

Alex shrugs. “At the pub, after you – when I came in Tom had you pinned to the floor. He looked like he was really about to kill you, and the way you kept looking at him. It seemed like you were thinking about something else.”

Hal releases her, pulls himself up, and stands there stiff in front of her. It was apparently the wrong thing to say, the wrong example to use. They hadn’t talked about it, what Hal had done in that pub. Tom hasn’t called Allison, Alex hasn’t gone home to Scotland, and no one talks about the pub.

“Why do you keep pushing this?” Hal asks. His voice is low and quiet. 

“I’m not – I’m trying to understand,” Alex says.

“What are you – are you jealous?” Hal asks, squinting at her. “I wouldn’t have guessed you were the sort to –”

“Of course I’m not jealous,” Alex cuts in. It’s offensive that he would try to suggest it. “Do I really seem jealous to you?”

Hal’s quiet. Hal stares at her for a long time and then he looks down and says, “All right. Fine. We’ll talk about Tom.”

**

She watched them for months. She watched as they danced around each other, as they stared each other down, dared one another to make a move, and she was sure, even through all of that, that they probably still had no idea. She thought – sometimes she thought that Hal must know. He’d been around a long time, he had to know what he was dancing around with Tom. It was no different than what he spent months dancing around with Alex. Even when they were trying to kill each other, Tom and Bad Hal or whatever, even when Alex had to stop Tom from pushing a stake through Hal’s heart, as she broke the news about Hatch, she saw the way that Hal watched Tom, the smile that pulled at his mouth and the light in his eyes. Hal isn’t stupid and he isn’t naïve. He’s just chosen to –

She assumes that, even though he’s agreed, talking will mostly involve her trying to pry information out of him, so she’s surprised when she opens the door to her room once she’s dressed to find that he’s still there waiting. And when she invites him in and he settles on the edge of her bed, she doesn’t have to prompt. He gathers himself, nods, and then starts right in.

"When Leo and I first started – when we first began our arrangement, there was a tension between us that was similar to what you’ve noticed between me and Tom.”

Ah, so this all goes back to Leo. Alex sits down on the bed beside Hal and waits for him to continue.

“It was different circumstances. Our relationship began much differently than how my relationship started with Tom. I did unforgivable things to Leo and in return he – he devoted his life to me. Early on there were some antagonistic feelings. It was understandable. It was easy for me to mistake that for some sort of sexual tension, for a game or a flirtation. If I was in a different place, a different mindset, if it had come just a few months earlier, I might have allowed myself to enjoy it, to pursue it, but I – I can't imagine how things might have gone if I had ever tried to disrupt the delicate balance that we had together at the start. I can't imagine where I would be now, but I know for certain that I would not be here with you.”

Alex takes Hal’s hand, folds it between both of hers and holds it in her lap. He doesn’t pull away from her.

“Leo is – I've lived a long time – centuries – and Leo is the most important person, the most influential person to ever step into my life. He became the family that I never had. He was my jailer, and then he became my mentor and my best friend. Without him, I'd – it was the longest I've ever gone without blood. Sixty years is – for a vampire that's extraordinary.” 

Alex smiles, shrugs and looks down at his hand in hers. "And then you met me."

"It wasn't you," Hal says. "Don't think that. It was Cutler. It was me."

Hal continues. 

"Tom is nothing like Leo, except in the ways that he is, but those ways aren't –  
Tom has had many negative experiences with vampires, but McNair did his job well. He protected Tom, sheltered him, perhaps a bit too much at times, but he didn't – if I had attempted to pursue Leo, he would have rejected me. He probably would have laughed at me. If I had forced it, and I might have then, he would have fought me, he would have turned me away. He might have killed me. That's all true. I might have destroyed everything, but even given that, by the time Leo was Tom's age, I’d – Leo was never as emotionally delicate as Tom. Tom is – "

"Tom's a romantic," Alex supplies. Hal thinks about this for a moment and then he nods.

"You saw how it happened, how I slipped. If I'd let myself slip with Tom as well, if I'd added that to the rest of it, I would have destroyed so much more of what we love about Tom.”

“So much more?” Alex repeats.

He pulls his hand away from hers. “I would have purposely destroyed him and I would have enjoyed it."

Alex frowns. She isn’t sure she believes that. 

"So you think you’re sheltering him is what you’re telling me. You know what’s there, but you’re just going to keep on hiding from it. You're doing exactly what McNair did, sheltering Tom, except it's worse, because McNair wasn't withholding love. He wasn't withholding affection. He was sheltering Tom from the world. You're sheltering him from yourself."

“He has Allison,” Hal says. “He’s excited about Allison. And I have you.”

“Mm,” Alex says. 

“What is that? Mm?”

Alex shrugs. “Nothing,” she says. “Just feels like another excuse, is all.”

Hal smiles. “You think you’re an excuse to me? That’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t think I’m an excuse,” Alex says. “Not a good one anyway, which you’d realize if you were really listening to what I’m saying to you. Do I think you just used me as an excuse though? Yeah, a bit.”

"Tom knows that I care for him. Isn't that enough?"

“Tom isn’t Leo.”

“I know that,” Hal says.

“It sounds like you’re trying to recreate what you had before, but you can’t. We’re different people. And you’re human now,” Alex points out. “We’re all human now. You aren’t going to tear Tom down anymore than you’re going to attack me, right? Everything’s different now. All of that’s in the past.” 

Hal looks down and Alex reaches for him, turns his face toward her, and then leans in to kiss his mouth. It’s awkward, nothing like it was in the corridor. He’s stiff beneath her hands, but he doesn’t stop her, and after a moment he kisses her back.

“Does it feel dangerous?” she asks. “Does this still feel dangerous?”

Hal shuts his eyes, swallows. He turns his face into the palm of her hand and when he speaks, his voice sounds choked, a whisper. 

“Yes,” Hal says, and the word hits Alex somewhere low in her gut and she’s pulling Hal to her to kiss him again.

Hal doesn’t hesitate this time. He kisses her back right away, shifts and draws closer, his body warm beside hers. When he begins to push her back, guiding her down onto the bed, she moves easily, perhaps a bit too eagerly, pulling at him until he’s leaning over her, pressing kisses to her mouth. 

“Hal,” she says against his mouth, and when he kisses her again his tongue dips in between her lips. He tastes her and the noise he makes, a small quiet moan, has her pulling him to her, her hands on his arms and then his chest before they slide up beneath his shirt to touch his skin. She can’t remember ever wanting anyone more than this. She can’t remember anyone ever feeling better than this. 

His thumb strokes her cheek and she remembers the slide of his thumb against Tom’s wrist. She wonders suddenly if he’s here thinking of her, or if it’s Tom, or them both. She’s surprised to find that she hopes he’s thinking of them both. 

Finally he stops, his mouth hovering over hers. They stare at each other, their faces close. Alex nods, understanding the unspoken question right away. She squeezes her eyes shut, shakes her head, and then says, “Right. Taking it slow. Let’s – yeah.”

Hal pauses there for a moment longer, and she thinks he might kiss her again, push caution to the wind, but he doesn’t. He slides away from her, collapses onto the bed beside her. He’s breathing heavy and she watches the rise and fall of his chest for a moment before he starts to sit up. 

They haven’t resolved a thing. Hal’s still up here hiding with her, and Tom’s downstairs on the sofa, watching telly and waiting for the full moon. 

Alex likes Allison, she really does, but she thinks of Tom and she’s surprised to find that she feels possessive. She feels – 

Hal sits on the edge of her bed and stares out the window. 

“I don’t want Tom to rush off to Allison either,” Alex admits. She thinks it’s probably her turn. “It feels selfish to say so, but I want – I want to stay like this, the three of us. It feels right, doesn’t it? It feels complete.” 

She sees Hal’s shoulders slump as he sighs and when he turns toward her, she can tell by the set of his mouth that he’s preparing for something. She isn’t surprised when he says, “There’s something else that I think you should know.”

From the tone, there’s no way that this can be good. She sits up on the bed, runs a hand through her hair. “Hal, not now.”

“It’s about Larry Chrysler,” Hal starts. “Tom’s, um. His life coach.”

“Yeah,” Alex says. “I remember.” Who could forget Larry?

“When I said that he just packed his things and left I – I may have been – “

“He didn’t pack his things and leave?” Alex pressed.

“Not as such, no,” Hal says. 

"What then?" she asks, but as soon as she says it, she knows. She guesses. “You killed him.”

She wants him to protest. She wants so badly for him to deny it, but he doesn't. He simply nods.

“When?”

“When I left you with Tom at McNair’s grave.”

“You’re –“

“I killed Larry and I called Rook to – to clean it up. That’s why Rook left us with Bobby. It’s why I – I’m sorry that I lied to you and Tom. I wasn’t – I was slipping. I started slipping as soon as I had that first sip.”

Alex squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. Hal Yorke is a liar, a murderer, a snob. He’s the reason Alex died. He’s the reason she’s here now – he’s –

“Tom should be here for this,” she says. “He should hear this. You can’t – “ 

“I understand if this changes everything,” Hal says. “Of course, I understand that I’ve – the things I’ve done are –“

“Shut up,” Alex cuts in. “Just shut up for a minute, please.” She can’t think with him here. She can never think when he’s close.

This is the real reason, isn’t it? He won’t pursue Tom because he knows that he doesn’t deserve him. And what does that say about Alex? What does it say that he’s here with her? 

Hal’s quiet beside her, but the room seems to hum with his presence. She wonders how he did it. Was it a knife? A bottle? His hands? She remembers coming home to find Hal fighting against Mary’s stake, aimed at his heart. Alex and Tom had fought so hard to stop her, to save him.

“I would have been right to let Tom stake you,” Alex says. “I should have let Mary kill you. You really did have it coming, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Hal agrees. 

“Why?” Alex asks. “Larry was an arsehole, but – “

“He was a threat to the stability of the house. I warned him. I didn’t intend – but he kept pushing. The things he said about me, about you and about Tom, I didn’t think, I just reacted. It was over in a matter of moments. Seconds, and once it was done I couldn’t take it back.”

Alex laughs. “Did you want to take it back?”

Hal presses his lips together. “No.”

“You killed Larry because you thought he’d cause you to lose us,” Alex translates. “And then you lied about it, covered it up, because you knew you would lose us for killing him.”

Hal shuts his eyes.

“Is this how it’s always going to be with us?” Alex asks. “You let me get in just a little deeper, and then you reveal the next thing, the next lie?”

“No,” Hal shakes his head. “No, I – that isn’t how it is now.” 

“No?” She feels it, all of it, start to bubble up to the surface. “You let me date you, a fucking vampire, even though you knew you might kill me. You knew it was dangerous for me to be around you. And then there was Cutler, but oh, you were only involved tangentially, weren’t you? And after Cutler, here comes Crumb tied to a radiator in the cellar. Crumb, Lady Mary, Larry Chrysler, Natasha’s blood, the blood in that bloody ritual. What’s next, Hal? What else is there?”

She’s standing now, pacing the room. Hal stands too, but she holds up her hands to stop him from speaking, from approaching her.

“You know what, no, I’ve heard enough for today. Save it for a few months from now when we’re all cozy again, yeah? Save it for right after we have sex. Or maybe the first time I tell you ‘I love you.’ That would be a great time for another confession, don’t you think?”

“Alex –“

She leaves before he can say anything more. She slams the door behind her and she feels satisfaction flood through her at the finality of the bang. She only realizes that she’s left him in her room once she’s standing in the corridor, unsure where she’s storming off to. She chooses the attic. Eventually everything ends up in the attic anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

She leaves the house and walks the streets of Barry like she did that first month as a ghost. She found it a bit liberating then, one of the few perks to her condition, and with Hal screaming and cursing and fighting against his restraints, it felt good to escape once in a while, to clear her head. She could go wherever she wanted and nothing could happen to her. No one could hurt her. That damage had already been done. And hey, it had found Tom and Hal a job. So that worked out really well, yeah? Brilliant, really. She’s so glad she suggested it to them. 

She ends up on the beach. Sometimes back when she was still dead, she rentaghosted into homes just to make sure it was true that she couldn’t be seen. She found the worst parts of Barry and walked through them after dark. She stood in the water and pretended that she could feel the waves. She wondered if ghosts could swim. If she walked out into the water, what would happen? Would she float at the surface or could she walk the floor of the sea? Sometimes she swore that dogs could see her; could she be seen by the fish too?

She never tried it. She wishes a bit that she had. Now she stands at the edge of the ocean, just out of reach of the waves. She doesn’t want to get her boots wet, and she only walks the parts of Barry that she knows.

She thinks about leaving but she can’t imagine leaving Tom. And if she’s being honest, even after everything, it’s hard to imagine leaving Hal either. It isn’t that she needs them. She could get by. She could go back to Scotland or… well, she was going to say she could go anywhere, but that’s not quite true, is it? She’s alive again and that means there are limits. She doesn’t actually have any money, so that’s probably it; she can stay here or she can go home.

So that’s it then. She’ll stay for Tom, but she’s done playing this game with Hal. She’s done dancing with him, letting him pull her close and then drive her away. She’d made a game of it once, getting involved with inappropriate people. It was fun for a while, but this isn’t fun anymore. 

Hal’s waiting for her when she returns to the house. He stands from the sofa and approaches the door, his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. He watches as she starts to remove her boots. She didn’t step into the waves, but she did sit on the beach and dig her feet into the sand. She should leave them on and clomp across the carpets. She loosens the laces, but doesn’t remove them, stands to face him instead.

“Where’s Tom?” she asks.

“He went out looking for you.”

“I haven’t been gone long,” she notes. It’s dark, sure, but it’s still early.

“I know,” Hal says. “He’s just – you know. Tom. He thought you might want the company.”

Alex nods, presses her lips together, tight.

“I guess I should go after him,” Alex says.

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” Hal reasons. 

They stand there in silence. She has so many things she wants to say. She has questions and accusations and she isn’t ready to get into any of it yet. She needs to think and gather and prepare. She needs to get away for a while. She reaches for the door, her hand on the knob. She’ll go find Tom. She’ll go back to the beach and sit there all night. At least there she’ll be able to breathe.

Her hand slides off the knob.

“I need to go home,” she admits.

Hal nods. “Of course. I expected that you’d – We’ll leave in the morning.”

She wants to tell him not to come, but she isn’t sure she can go alone. Besides, Hal has the car and he doesn’t like letting Tom drive it and Alex doesn’t know how. She could take a bus or the train, but –

“Not tomorrow,” Alex says. “My dad works into the evenings on Thursdays, or he did when I was – He probably still does. I don’t really know anymore, do I? I suppose it’s only been a few months. It feels longer, doesn’t it.”

“Friday then,” Hal suggests. He smiles and it’s small, no teeth.

**

She flips through old magazines that she found in the attic. The edges of the pages are yellowed and curled. Some of them are older than her. Tom hasn’t returned and it’s getting late. Hal hasn’t come upstairs but she hasn’t heard him leave, so he must still be down there, reading or watching telly or puttering around in the kitchen. She falls asleep with her cheek pressed against the magazine’s musty pages.

She wakes with a start. The sun is up, her bedroom door is shut, and someone is knocking. 

“It’s Hal,” Hal says from the other side. She turns onto her back, stares at the ceiling and doesn’t answer. After a moment, he walks away. 

He’d tried to apologize to her shortly after the whole thing with the kissing and the confession. He’d tried to apologize as soon as she’d come down from the attic, but she isn’t ready to hear it, and anyway, it didn’t sound sincere. How can he apologize for five hundred years? Should he have to? Is that what she wants? 

And what does that matter right now? She’s going home tomorrow and she has no idea what she’ll say or how she’ll explain the last several months. She guesses “killed by a vampire, hung around as a ghost, but hey, we killed _the_ Devil, so ta-da! I’m human again,” probably isn’t an acceptable explanation. She wonders if Hal will still have a heart attack if she tries to get away with that even though he’s human now and doesn’t actually need to protect himself or, presumably (hopefully – they’re still waiting on that full moon) anyone else. She hopes she doesn’t cry when she sees them. 

Of course, she’s going to cry. If she’s honest, she can’t wait to cry, to feel her dad’s arms around her, holding her tight, her face pressed to his shoulder as she just sobs like she used to when she was wee, like she did just once when her mum left, long after Alex had tried to toughen up, give up, and make a mess of her life in her mother’s name. All that effort and it was still so easy to just crumble.

There’s another knock at her door, but this time it’s Tom.

“I’ve brought your brekkie,” he says, the sound of his voice muffled by the door. “Can I come in or what? It’s getting cold.”

She smiles and sits up on the bed. “Yeah, Tom. You can come in.”

Tom turns the knob and then backs through the door with the tray in his hand. He sits down on the edge of the bed and presents it to her. 

Alex nods. “Wow,” she says. She’d expected a bowl of cereal, maybe a muffin, or some fruit and a cup of tea. The tray holds a nearly full fry-up, complete with a flower sat in a water glass.

“It’s missing sausages,” Tom points out. “I told Hal it ain’t complete without the sausages, but he didn’t want to hear it.”

“You made this together then?” Alex asks. That must have been why Hal had been knocking at the door earlier.

“Nah, I didn’t really help or owt,” Tom says. “I just walked in the kitchen while he was cooking it up, so I supervised. And I added the flower.”

“Well, the flower’s lovely. Working in that hotel taught you both a thing or two, huh?”

Tom shrugs. “Sure.”

Alex picks up a piece of toast and bites into it as she runs her other hand through her hair. It’s flattened to one side of her head and feels like it might be sticking up a bit on the other side, but Tom isn’t laughing or anything, so it can’t be too horrendous. 

“I fell asleep reading. Did you shut my door when you came back?”

“Nah,” Tom says. “Hal must’ve done it. It was shut when I came up. I knocked, but you weren’t answering.”

Alex looks over the edge of her bed. Her boots are sitting there neatly, laces tucked in at the top. She collapsed onto the bed still wearing them the previous evening, as though she was meaningfully rebelling against someone instead of just filling her own bed with beach sand.

“I guess Hal took off my boots then too,” Alex breathes. “That’s a bit weird.”

Tom shrugs. He watches as Alex cuts into her bacon, uses the edge of her toast to mop up the beans. After a moment, Alex looks up.

“Ah, I’m being rude,” she realizes. “Are you hungry? Here, slide over. We can share.”

Tom shakes his head, though he does slide closer to sit beside her. “I ate downstairs while Hal was setting yours on the tray.”

So he made them both breakfast. That makes her feel a little less strange about the whole thing. If Tom hadn’t come down, did he plan to serve Tom breakfast in bed too? She catches herself smiling just a bit at the thought. 

“Where is Hal anyway?”

Tom shrugs. “Probably washing up.”

She’s been keeping to herself the last few days, and a lot of that is what’s happening with Hal, but it’s Tom too. She’s been avoiding Tom because she knows that she needs to tell Tom about Hal and about Larry, Tom needs to know, and she’s worried at how he’ll react. They’re human now, they can’t just go straight from heartbreak to stakes anymore. She sets her fork and knife down on the tray.

“Tom, there’s something that I think you should know,” she says. “About Hal.”

“Yeah. I, uh, I know why you’ve been fighting and that,” Tom admits. “Hal told me about Larry.”

Tom doesn’t look angry. He doesn’t look like he did when he learned about Crumb or about Natasha. Tom just looks calm and maybe a little tired. Alex sets the breakfast tray aside and turns toward him.

“You aren’t angry?” Alex asks.

Tom frowns and then shrugs. 

“He killed someone and he hid it from us,” Alex points out. “That’s something that we should definitely be angry and upset over.”

“Yeah, I know that” Tom says. “It ain’t the same as when we thought he killed Natasha though. Larry ain’t the same.”

“Because it wasn’t for blood?” Alex asks. “Because Larry was an arsehole? Tom –“

“No,” Tom says. “I just mean he did it for us. He was protecting us.”

Alex tries to control her face, but she fails and she knows that she’s looking at Tom as though he’s lost his mind. “Protecting us from _what_? Larry upset you, he manipulated us, but do you really think he was dangerous?”

“I don’t know,” Tom says.

“It doesn’t make it any better,” Alex says. “It’s an excuse. He’s just using it as an excuse, don’t you see that?”

Tom sniffs and pulls at the worn hem of his shirt. “I might have done the same thing,” Tom admits after a moment. 

Alex throws up her hands and leans back against the headboard of the bed. The bars are uncomfortable behind her and she stares at Tom’s hunched shoulders. 

“No,” Alex sighs. “I know you, Tom. You’re a good person. You wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

Tom shrugs again. He isn’t looking at her and she reaches out, her hand rubbing just once across his shoulders and down his back before it falls away. The scars left by McNair are gone now. She used to catch herself looking at them, at the long one that started at the top of his head, the thicker one that ran down the back of his neck, down beneath the collar of his shirt. How could a baby survive that? The scars looked impressive on a full-grown man, but on a baby, she couldn’t even imagine.

“You know, I was actually worried you might go after him if you found out, that you might forget he isn’t a vampire anymore and we can’t – well, I just thought you might forget is all. Guess I was wrong.”

Tom’s quiet. He shifts until he’s backed up against the uncomfortable headboard beside her. She moves closer so that her side is pressed to his. 

“We’ll forgive him anything, won’t we?” she asks.

“Not anything.”

“Where’s the line though? I haven’t found it yet.”

“McNair killed people,” Tom says, his voice quiet. “Not on purpose, not – he killed my parents, you know that, but there were more too.”

“In dog fights, Tom,” Alex says. “You said the vampires forced him to fight humans in cages. That isn’t – that’s self-defense.”

“Yeah,” Tom agrees. “That weren’t it though. A chicken on a string works good, but it ain’t a fence or a cage. It don’t always work 100%.”

“It’s different,” Alex says. “Hal can –”

“Maybe it’s not that different though,” Tom cuts in. “I’ve been thinking a lot since I went back for Bobby at the hotel. I transformed in the woods and then ran straight through Barry, didn’t hurt no one, not even Hal.”

Hal had told her afterward that he’d never seen a werewolf as aware as Tom was in that moment. Until then, he hadn’t believed that a werewolf could choose not to blindly attack a vampire, even a vampire that the werewolf knew as well as Tom knew Hal. 

Alex didn’t know much about werewolves, but she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Hal was right, that the fact that Tom didn’t try to attack Hal really was impressive, extraordinary even. She’d noted it and added it to the mental list she was keeping along with the handshakes and fights and the cuddling together on the sofa (she was just waiting for the right moment to poke at them for that one). The incident at the hotel was just one more thing that –

It doesn’t matter now. She isn’t pushing any of it anymore. Not now. Tom _should_ go see Allison. Allison is nice and normal. Well, sort of normal. Whatever, she’s safe and she’s honest and Alex only met her briefly, but she could tell that Allison really fancied Tom. 

“Maybe werewolves just ain’t trying hard enough,” Tom continues. “Maybe the only thing that makes us different than vampires is that we only have one night to try to stop ourselves giving in. You ever think about that?”

“No,” Alex says, surprised by the turn of the conversation. “You don’t really think – you’ve been fighting vampires your entire life! I only discovered that vampires and werewolves and all of this existed a few months back, but I’ve seen enough that I feel pretty safe saying it isn’t the same at all. I mean, come on, aren’t I living proof of that?”

Alex’s death wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a slip. It was planned and executed. It was deliberate and brutal. She’s only met a few werewolves, but not even Larry seemed capable of the things she’s seen from vampires. Maybe Tom had learned how to keep control during his transformations, and maybe, if they tried hard enough, other werewolves could too. But even if they couldn’t, or didn’t want to try, the comparison was unthinkable. It was ridiculous. Larry was an arsehole and McNair had made some mistakes, but vampires; vampires had planned to take over the world.

“I don’t regret killing all those vampires,” Tom says. “That ain’t what I meant. I just meant – maybe Hal wasn’t different, but he was trying to be, which is more than most of the other vampires I met.”

Alex shakes her head. That’s what she thought too, but every time she lets herself believe it, she discovers something new and horrible. 

“Anyhow, doesn’t help staying mad about it, really, does it?” Tom asks, and then catches himself. “I wasn’t trying to say you shouldn’t be mad, just trying to tell you the way I see it ‘cause you asked. You can stay angry as long as you want, I’ll support you.”

“Thanks,” Alex says. “You’re a good friend. To Hal and to me.”

“Come on,” Tom says. He shrugs, self-conscious, but he’s smiling.

She can’t remember the last time she felt as comfortable with someone as she usually does with Tom. Once Tom stopped treating her like she was some 18th century damsel, they really have gotten on well. She isn’t ready to admit it, not quite yet, but he might be the closest friend she’s had since before her mother left. 

Who is she kidding? She pushed everyone away in those months after her mum disappeared. She kept people at arm’s length, only associated with people who she knew wouldn’t want to get too close. Her father and her brothers, that was it for her, and Tom is by far the closest friend she’s had since all of that.

“Come on,” Alex mocks, smiling with him.

**

Hal stays out of sight most of the day. He’s conspicuously quiet, almost entirely absent, until late in the afternoon when he emerges from wherever he’s been holed up, approaches Alex and says, “I thought, before we reunite you with your family tomorrow, that perhaps we might talk.”

“About Tom?” Alex asks. Tom looks up from his place on the sofa beside her, confused. She’s kidding, of course. She’s just being – whatever. Not funny. Not really clever either. Bitter? That might be it.

“What?” Hal asks. He glances over toward Tom and then shakes his head. “No, I – “

“We can talk about me if that’s easier,” Tom offers with a shrug.

After their conversation that morning, Alex guesses Tom probably has a lot of things he could find to talk about. If he’s been spending all of his time thinking about the nature of werewolves, even though he isn’t a werewolf, not anymore, she can only imagine what else might be going on in that head of his. Maybe she’s had it all wrong. The initial misunderstanding aside, maybe Tom really was the one she should have been approaching about the whole weird handshake stare-y eyed tension between Tom and Hal.

Not that that matters now. She’s done with all that. It was some silly romantic dream, the three of them happily ever after. 

Hal shifts, looks like he’s giving up, like he’s about to settle on the sofa and drop the whole thing entirely. 

“All right,” she concedes. Hal freezes mid-sit and awkwardly pulls himself upright again. She ignores the fact that she finds his confusion fucking adorable, his face all screwed up and sad. “No, sit down. Let’s talk.” 

“Here?”

“Sure,” Alex shrugs. “I’ll start. So you made me breakfast.”

“Yes, I –”

“You think that makes up for everything else?” Alex interrupts. “You think taking off my boots while I’m sleeping and cooking breakfast balances out lies and deaths?”

“Erm,” Tom says, clearly unsure as to whether or not he should intervene, and probably wishing Alex had chosen to move the conversation somewhere else.

“No,” Hal says immediately, his forehead tight. “No, of course not.”

Alex nods, relaxes back in her seat. It’s an act. She doesn’t feel very relaxed at all. “Okay. Just checking.”

Hal blinks, turns toward Tom as though he’s looking for help.

Tom starts to get up from the sofa. 

“I just remembered I have something important to do upstairs,” he says, completely unconvincing. Alex almost laughs, but she holds it in, watches as Hal tries to decide if it’s better to stop Tom or let him escape. Eventually Hal decides to let Tom escape, and then they’re alone, the two of them.

He sits down in Tom’s vacated spot on the sofa. Hal smells good, she notes, faintly like cologne and whatever else. Like Hal, probably. Who knows. She wonders if just giving in and fucking, shagging him right here on the sofa, might sort a lot of this out. Get to the shagging and then get over it. That’s all she really wanted at the start, wasn’t it? She was looking to have a little fun on holiday, that was all, a nice uncomplicated date, meaningless sex, maybe a bit of pining afterward, and then a nice memory or two. Was it so much to ask? And then all those months as a ghost, watching the way his arms moved beneath the thin fabric of his shirts, the way his mouth pulled together in a petulant pout, his shoulders and –

Maybe she was just tricking herself by spending all of those months thinking it might be something nicer than she’d originally intended. Maybe sex really is the answer here. They can work some of this out, and fuck the rest of it. Who cares if he’s a good person as long as he’s good in bed, right? As long as he gets her off, does it really matter what he did for the last five hundred years? They aren’t talking marriage and babies here. Were they ever? So let’s do this already. She’s been missing it for months.

She doesn’t say any of that. What comes out of her mouth instead is something she’s been thinking about for a while and trying to ignore and move past at the same time. Sex, yeah, maybe that will come next, but there actually are a few things that she needs to say first.

“You made Cutler, didn’t you?” Alex asks. 

He stills and she can tell that he’s surprised by her choice of an opener. She’s not entirely sure what it was he thought they should discuss, but Cutler apparently wasn’t on his list. 

They should probably just get as much of it out in the open as they can. Get this out and then worry about where they’re going from there.

“Uh, recruited?” she clarifies, remembering the jargon. “You messed him up once and that’s why he killed me.”

She’s thought about bringing it up before. She never did, and she isn’t sure why, but she thinks now that he would have lied to her if she had. He would have changed the subject. Now he says, “Yes. He killed you because of something that I did to him decades ago. I deserved it. There is no doubt that I deserved it. You didn’t.”

He doesn’t stumble over his words. He just says it, states the facts. It seems easier for him now. She wonders if it’s because he thinks the damage has already been done; how much worse can this relationship get? Or perhaps it’s just easier for him to open up now that he knows he probably won’t do anything like that again. She decides to push her luck.

“You killed his wife,” Alex guesses. She’d been there when Cutler presented Hal with her body. She’d heard the exchange and Cutler’s accusations. She’d stopped listening for a while after she heard that Hal had been drinking her blood, but she thinks she remembers Cutler saying that Hal killed his wife. She’s sure she remembers that.

Hal swallows. “I tricked Cutler into drinking her blood.”

Well, that explains some things.

“What was her name?” She isn’t sure why she wants to know.

“I don’t remember,” Hal admits. “It wasn’t important to me at the time.”

Alex nods. Nice.

"I don't understand you," she admits. "I don't understand how you can seem to care so much for Leo and for Tom and for me, and then turn around and spend 250 years lying to Lady Mary. I don't understand how you can talk like you did about your relationship with Tom and then lie about the blood and about Natasha. Most of the time I feel like I don’t even know you, and then I’m with you and I feel – I don’t know. I never know with you.”

“I understand if you –“

“I’m not finished,” Alex cuts in. She doesn’t want to listen to his apologies. What will that help? What would it change? 

“You know the worst part about it?” Alex asks. “Each time you force me to choose, each time that I choose you, I wonder if there is anything you can tell me that would turn me away from you. There’s something wrong with that, Hal. There’s something wrong with me.”

Hal is quiet for a moment and then he asks, “Do you want me to tell you enough to turn you away?”

Alex laughs and it sounds ugly.

“I could,” Hal assures her. “Believe me, you don’t want to know all of the things that I’ve done.”

He’s right. She doesn’t want to know everything. She doesn’t want to know about the scores of people he might have tortured and killed four hundred years ago, but she does want to know the things that pertain to her, the things that might result in her death, in her heartbreak, or in Tom’s. They’re human now, sure. He isn’t likely to kill her, not now, but she still needs to know.

“How about Leo? You told me that you did terrible things to him. Did you kill Leo’s wife too?”

Hal presses his lips together and then he shakes his head. “I captured Leo, kept him in chains, and forced him to participate in dog fights. I held him for six months before I helped him escape.”

Alex closes her eyes. When Hal was strapped to the chair, he made similar threats to Tom, shouting curses and promising cages, fights, and deaths. Tom had taken it in stride, explained what the dog fights were when Alex asked, but Hal never mentioned Leo in any of it.

“Does Tom know about Leo?”

“No.”

“You told him about Larry, are you going to tell him this?”

“I can’t,” Hal says. 

“Why tell me and not Tom?” Alex presses. “Let him choose how he should feel about you based on the same information you’ve given me. He at least deserves that.”

The side of Hal’s mouth pulls up into that version of a smile that he uses when he thinks she’s being ridiculous. He shakes his head. “I can’t tell Tom about that.”

She wonders again what that says about her. Tom is protected from Hal’s feelings. He’s protected from Hal’s lies, but not Alex. Is she supposed to feel special? Or offended? She thinks that she should feel jealous. She thinks she should feel hurt at how Tom is clearly more important here. Tom is the one who must be spared. 

Alex isn’t jealous. She doesn’t know what she is, but it isn’t jealous. Randy, probably. Just all around frustrated, mostly.

Anyway, she’s sure Hal’s wrong. Tom isn’t nearly as fragile as Hal pretends that he is. Tom will be upset, but Alex is starting to think that they’ve underestimated Tom’s ability to overlook crushing revelations about the people that he loves most. It’s obvious that he forgave McNair for a lot. It’s becoming just as clear to Alex that Hal, while not as high on Tom’s list of loved ones as McNair was, is pretty far up there. She thinks that Tom might be able to move past even this. 

“I don’t know if you noticed,” Alex says. “But Tom and I, we’re pretty dedicated to you. If you had told us that you killed Larry, we would have been upset. We would have been disappointed and we probably wouldn’t have understood. But then we would have helped get rid of the body. We would have helped you get through it.

“I mean, Jesus, Hal. You recruited a pub full of people, and even then, if you’d been willing, we would have helped you get clean again. We would have stuck by you and moved past it. You really thought – we all hated Larry. I didn’t want him dead, but I don’t – don’t you see that there’s something wrong with that? With us? We were never human at all, were we? That whole speech you gave about how wanting it is having it; it was bullshit. Even now we’re – we’re compromised.”

“Don’t say that,” Hal says with a sigh that sounds more weary than upset.

“And maybe that happened for Tom a long time before he met you, but it’s a new feeling for me. It’s still surprising to me, you know, learning that I’d go by a different set of rules after I met you, that I’m not really a good person, am I? Everyone sort of goes through life thinking that they are, but then you find yourself choosing your boyfriend over a whole bunch of dead people, and that’s it, isn’t it? There’s the bloody wake-up call!”

She’s talking fast, running low on breath, and she stops with a gasp, turns her head away from him as she sucks air into her lungs. Hal’s quiet beside her, doesn’t argue with any of it. She wishes that he would. She wishes that he would fight her. She wishes that he would give her a reason to channel her frustration into something physical, that he would touch her so that she could push him away, pull him closer. _Something._

Hal just sits there, passive. It’s infuriating, but It could be worse, she supposes. He’s sitting there doing nothing, saying nothing, but he doesn’t look hurt or wounded this time. He isn’t trying that again. His eyes are dark and his jaw is tightly set and she knows that he’s holding something in. She can tell he’s trying to hold back and she’s sick of it. 

They’re human. He should be able to let go a little now without worrying that it’ll result in bodies piled between them. They can fight and rail and scream and come out on the other side of it. That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it? It’s a fucking reward for a job well done. Good-bye serial killer vampire, hello humanity.

She wonders, suddenly, if she’s being naïve, if she should be thinking this through a little more from his point of view, but she’s too worked up to stop now. She wants to grab him and shake him. She wants to push him to the floor, her fingers on his chest, pressed against his arms hard enough to hurt. She curls her hands at her sides and shakes her head and when she speaks, her voice sounds much more subdued than she feels.

“Jesus, Hal. Say something, will you? All of that and you’re just going to sit there?” 

He responds by kissing her. She sits there stunned for a moment (but only a very short moment) before her hands come up to grip at his arms, her fingers pressing hard, but probably not hard enough to hurt. She tells herself she should push him away, but she pulls him closer instead, kisses him back. The kiss is rather desperate, rushed and hard, and when she takes his bottom lip in hers, presses it between her teeth, he gasps into her mouth and she’s sure that she’s done. His arms are around her, her body pressed to his and she pulls back, pulls him down onto the sofa with her.

His hand slides out from behind her back, over the waist of her jeans and then down between her legs, pressing against her. It’s the furthest they’ve gone, his hand over her clothes. It’s the most forward he’s ever been with her and she presses against him and holds him tighter. This time she must push too hard, grip and pinch, because he starts and then stills, pulls away far enough to lean his forehead against hers. 

“Come on,” Alex urges, though she knows that there’s a good chance that whatever he’s about to say will end this, will drive her away from him again. “Say something.”

Hal sighs, a warm puff of air against her lips, and then shakes his head. His fingertips trace back and forth along the seam of her jeans, teasing her for a moment before he presses against her with the flat of his hand again. His fingers curl in toward her and she knows she could get off like this, rubbing against him through the layers of her clothes. She’s stupid to push him to talk when they’ve already started this and it’s almost exactly everything she wants. It’s stupid to try to think when his hand is on her, when it’s been so fucking long since anyone else has touched her.

Hal leans in close, kisses her mouth and then nips at her jaw. She shifts and presses herself against his hand.

“Do you want me to try to apologize for every heinous act that I’ve ever committed?” he asks. His voice is low and careful. “I won’t do that. I can’t. It’s laughable.”

“No,” Alex says. She shuts her eyes. Jesus, they’re going to talk about this while his hand is still on her, aren’t they. 

“I don’t know what it is that you want from me.”

“Nothing,” Alex says. “I don’t want anything anymore.”

“Except this,” Hal clarifies. He nods down toward his hand, to the way that she moves against it.

Alex laughs and then exhales. It sounds a little shaky to her ears and she shakes her head and tries to cover it up. “Look, just don’t lie to me anymore, all right? Let’s be honest with each other about who we are and what this is.”

“All right,” Hal agrees. He leans in and kisses her. “Yes, let’s be honest.”

He leans down and bites at her shoulder through the cotton of her shirt, not hard, just enough to make her shudder and shift against his hand again. 

It occurs to her suddenly (though it’s probably something she should have been considering all along) that removing the vampire from the man doesn’t automatically make him good. It doesn’t necessarily remove the danger. Everyone knows what humans are capable of, and Alex doesn’t really know Hal at all.

“I don’t trust you,” Alex admits. It feels like a ridiculous thing to say when she’s spread beneath him on a sofa, her hands holding him, keeping him close, but it’s the truth. “I don’t even like you, really, at least not who you were. It’s a bit hard to say now, isn’t it? Everything’s different now. But there you go, that’s me being honest about it. I don’t like who you were. I think you were weak, a liar who was afraid to feel and afraid to trust your friends. I don’t think you deserved me or Tom.”

He’s watching her. His mouth is open just a bit and he’s breathing a little heavy. He moves against her thigh and for the first time, she feels that he’s hard. When she pauses, he nods. 

“Go on,” he says. 

Alex tries to focus and continues. “I don’t know that I think you deserved this second chance, but you got it, and the truth is that despite all of that, I obviously still want this. We’ve some unfinished business that I think we need to attend to.”

She stills, surprised for a moment by her choice of words. 

“What if that was it all along? What if shagging you was my unfinished business?”

Hal shakes his head. “It wasn’t.”

“No,” Alex concedes. “Probably not.”

“So, we’ll do this,” Hal translates, getting them back on track. “We’ll complete this unfinished business of ours, and then you’ll leave us and return to your family?”

Alex snorts. “I’m not leaving Tom alone with you. How would you ever cope, just the two of you?”

Maybe she’s wrong. Perhaps they’d cope just fine. Perhaps it wouldn’t even be long before Tom’s the one here on the sofa, working out the truth of his relationship with Hal. She pictures it, Tom here in her place. It’s a more attractive image than she expects it to be, and she feels a little filthy, a bit like she’s betraying their friendship by imagining how his face might look, his lips parted and his eyes heavy. 

She didn’t start any of this thinking that there was anything in it for her. She didn’t push Hal to admit that there was something there because she thought that she might benefit from it too. And this changes nothing; she doesn’t think that Hal deserves Tom. She doesn’t trust that his lies and the confessions that come too late won’t hurt Tom even more than they’ve hurt her. She’s not an advocate for any of it anymore, but she – well, they don’t create an unpleasant picture together, is all that she’s really getting at, far from it.

She’s close and she leans up to kiss Hal, kisses his skin wherever she can reach it, his neck, his jaw, his cheek, until eventually he turns and catches her mouth with his.

“So you aren’t staying in Scotland,” he asks. “I thought when you said that you need to go home, you planned –“

“No,” she says, cuts in before he can finish. 

Hal thinks about this for a moment, kisses her a bit absently.

“Good,” he says. “So what is this then?”

Alex shrugs. “This was never supposed to be anything more than a holiday for me, you know? Maybe we go back to thinking of it like that. This thing between us is a fling, right? Maybe we’re just using each other to get off for a bit and that’s it.” 

His hand stops moving as he thinks over what she’s said and she worries that he’ll pull away from her, that he’ll leave her here like this when she’s so close. She slides her hand from his arm, slips it down between them to cover his hand where it still touches her. She presses him to her, holds his hand tight against her until the orgasm bursts within her, spreads out from the spot where his fingers press, curls through her stomach and out toward her limbs. Her hands grip at him and her legs fold, press in against him, try to hold on to the moment, hold it in and make it last. 

When it starts to fade, she releases his hand and falls back against the cushions of the sofa, breathing hard. She tries to remember what she’d been saying a moment before. She licks at her lips, reaches up to push her hair off her forehead.

“Woo,” she says, her voice higher than she expects. She smiles up at him and he stares back down at her. He’s still touching her, which is fine with her, frankly. If he can make that happen again a few minutes from now, all the better. “All right. I’m sorry, what was I saying?”

“You were saying that we are using each other to get off,” Hal says. It sounds filthy when he says it. Jesus.

She nods. “Well, we’re both rubbish when it comes to relationships. That seems pretty clear. It’s probably better if we stop pretending that this ever should have been one.”

“I can do that,” Hal agrees, just before he moves in to kiss her again.


	4. Chapter 4

It sounded ridiculous when Hal laid it out in the car. It was a ridiculous story, completely unconvincing, and Alex knew that there was no way anyone would ever believe it. It was all a misunderstanding, misidentification. It was another girl’s body, accidentally identified as Alex. Alex had fallen, hit her head, was in a coma for days, and then this other girl’s body washed up, eaten by fish, hardly recognizable. It was another girl that died, and two months later Alex woke up in a hospital bed, but she didn’t really know where she was. 

An amnesia story. 

It sounds like something Hal picked up on Coronation Street. It was Tom and Hal who’d found her; it was Tom and Hal who probably saved her life.

“Hold up,” Alex interjects from the back seat of the car. “We’re telling my dad that you’re responsible for _saving_ my life now?”

“Unless you have a better idea?” Hal asks, his eyes on the road. They’re somewhere in – she actually has no idea where they are. She stopped paying attention sometime before they reached Gloucester. 

“Sure,” Alex says. “We could tell him the truth.”

Hal glances at her in the rear view mirror. She folds her arms over her chest and stares back, but after a moment she gives in.

“All right, you’re right. We can’t tell him the truth, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to say that you saved my life and keep a straight face about it. That’s not happening.”

Hal sighs and shakes his head. “Tom found you then. Tom saved your life. I was just – “ 

He trails off and she knows that she shouldn’t complete his sentence for him. She really shouldn’t; she should let it go, but she just can’t help herself.

“You were just what? Involved tangentially?” she supplies. “Are those the words you were looking for there?” 

Tom glances over at Hal from the front passenger seat, probably expecting this to escalate into a full blown argument any moment now. Hal returns Tom’s glance, just briefly, just long enough for Tom to sort of shrug. Tom turns to Alex next, but instead of a shrug she gets a small nod before Tom turns back in his seat and goes back to staring out the windscreen at the road. 

She isn’t really trying to turn this into an argument. She actually feels pretty good with where they’re at with each other after their conversation (and their fooling around) the evening before. She feels like they’ve reached an understanding, finally, like some of the weight, some of the expectation, has been lifted off her chest. She’s not trying to start a fight, but come on. She can’t just let something like that go either. 

“You can tell it however you feel you need to,” Hal concedes after a moment.

“Thank you,” she agrees with a nod.

It still sounds so ridiculous, even omitting Hal from the saving part, and her voice shakes a little as she tells it, rushing through the details, glossing over things that she’s sure are important. Her father is watching her and he’s smiling and his eyes look wet. He nods in all of the appropriate places.

Hal sits beside her, stiff and straight, his hands folded in front of him. Tom’s in the living room, laughing with her brothers.

“Jesus,” her father says, when she’s finished speaking, when all of Hal’s words have spilled out of her mouth, piling up on the kitchen table in front of them. He wipes a hand across his face. “Jesus,” he says.

“Are you all right?” Hal asks. “Do you need anything? A glass of water?”

“Or something a bit stronger?” Alex amends. Hal hears that tone in her voice, trying to discredit and dismiss her own story before her father can do it for her. His brow furrows and Alex shrugs.

“I don’t need water,” her father says. “I don’t need anything. I’m just glad to have my girl back.”

“Really?” Alex asks, surprised by her father’s response, surprised that there isn’t a single question. Her father laughs and pulls her into another hug.

“Of course, really,” her father says. “What did you think? That I’d be upset to find out my daughter is alive and well?”

“No, I – “ Alex starts, but she doesn’t finish, holds tight to her dad instead, presses her mouth to his shoulder and closes her eyes.

Hal clears his throat and stands, the legs of his chair loud as they scrape against the kitchen floor.

“I’ll just –” he starts, and then trails off and just leaves the room.

Finally her father sits back, holds her at arm’s length, and then nods toward the door.

“Are you two –” he starts. “You know, uh, an item?”

“No,” Alex says, perhaps a bit too quickly. She rolls her eyes at herself. “I mean, we thought about it, but it wasn’t really working out.”

“You and the other bloke? Tom?”

Alex smiles, shakes her head. “No.”

Her father thinks about this for a moment. “The two of them, are they –?”

“You see that too, huh?” Alex mutters.

“Ah,” her father says, nodding. In a moment he’s going to bring up her Uncle Adrian. He’s always been very predictable that way. Alex laughs.

“No,” Alex corrects. “No, I didn’t mean – they aren’t together, not like that.”

“Friends then, the three of you.”

“Yeah,” Alex says. “Friends.” 

“Good.”

**

Ryan shows her his tattoo, the spelling mistake now covered by an intricate sunburst design containing a whole lot of black space. 

“Well, I suppose it’s better, isn’t it?” she says. She pokes at it. “Is that a bit of a ‘k’ I see right there?”

“Oh, shove off,” Ryan says, but he smiles when he says it. She nods. They’re good.

Decky holds her tight and Derek punches her arm and it all seems so normal again, like she never left, like they didn’t spend months thinking she was dead. It’s like she’s just been gone on a holiday of her own and – some holiday that was, eh?

She listens to Decky and Derek explaining a video game to Tom. Tom’s taken to them right away, just as Alex knew that he would be. 

“I ain’t never played a video game before,” Tom says when Derek starts asking him questions about the sorts of games he likes and Decky and Derek balk and then shout and start pulling out controllers, ordering Tom to sit on the floor in front of the television.

Tom looks to Alex, questioning, and Alex nods. “You’re good,” she says. “You’ll love it.”

Her father brings in a tray with tea and lemonade for her brothers. He sits beside Hal and asks him all sorts of fatherly questions and Hal indulges him, talks about the house and the job at the hotel like it’s all so every day, so normal and unexciting.

Look at them all; her father, her brothers, Hal and Tom, all together in one room together. What would she do without any of them?

She’s sitting on the piano stool and she turns, pushes up the cover and presses a few of the keys. 

Hal looks up immediately and reaches for her. He slides her hand away, holds it in his. He tries to pass it off as a gesture of affection, but they aren’t really the hand holding sort. She knows the real reason he does it and she smiles, stands and pulls at Hal's hand. 

"Come on," she says. "I want to show you my room."

She’s pretty sure she hears her father mutter, “Just friends, eh” as they leave, but he doesn’t stop them and no one follows. 

Her room is – well, half of her stuff is in boxes, but it’s all still here. The bed is still here. They were going to move one of her brothers in, her father said, no reason for them to keep sharing a room, but no one could bring themselves to make the actual move, so it's just sat here, her bed and her clothes and her things in boxes on the floor. 

"Look at it," Alex says. "It feels a bit like the attic at the house, doesn't it? All those abandoned things from people's lives."

"Mm," Hal says, looking around. "Not yours though. You're still here."

"Yeah," Alex smiles. "Yeah, I am, aren't I?"

She moves in toward him, crowding up against the door. "What do you think?" she asks. "Fancy shagging me with my old man right downstairs?"

It’s completely inappropriate. It also wouldn't be the first time, but it would be the first time with Hal and that – she steps back away from him.

"There were times when I was sure I was never going to get out of this house, of this room," Alex says, suddenly.

"What?" Hal asks, confused by the change of subject. Alex closes the distance between them again, kisses his mouth. God, she loves his mouth. She’s still pretty unsure about the rest of him – she meant what she said to him on the sofa at the house – but she loves this. She loves the way his mouth presses to hers, the way his lips fit with hers. 

And no, of course, they don’t shag in her room. They return to the others after only a moment or two. Alex wants to spend as much time with them as she can. She wants to soak them in, to hear everything that’s happened in the last few months. Decky looks taller to her and she holds him back against her, measures the spot where his head hits her chest. 

“Definitely taller,” she says. “My wee man.”

They order takeaway and eat pizza while sprawled about the living room. The room was always too small for them, but with the addition of Tom and Hal it feels even smaller. She thinks the word is probably cramped, but it doesn’t feel right to say so, not when she loves it as much as she does now. After a week or two it would feel cramped, but right now it’s just cozy. Yes, she’ll go with cozy.

They stay up talking late into the evening. She tells stories about Tom and Hal and carefully leaves out a lot of important details, which, well, makes her come off as a pretty rubbish storyteller, spinning tales full of holes, but no one asks too many questions and for a while Tom and Hal jump in to fill in blanks with varying degrees of success. Her brothers, in return, talk about the trouble they’ve got themselves into while she was gone. 

“It’s been rough without you,” her dad says, but then he winks and she knows they’ve managed all right in the end. They’ve adjusted. He won’t try to guilt her into staying on if it isn’t what she wants.

Tom and Hal fall asleep on the sofa sometime before midnight. It was a long drive up from Barry and they left early that morning when the sun was just hitting the horizon. Tom’s stretched out across most of the sofa, his feet pushed up against Hal’s side. Hal has his face turned toward the arm, his neck at an uncomfortable angle. His mouth hangs open and she can’t help but think of that month of him tied to that chair, trying to sleep with his hands and feet tied. 

“Why don’t you offer them your bedroom?” her father says, nudging her when he catches her watching them. “You can sleep here on the sofa, or push one of your brothers to the floor.”

“Sleep with us,” Decky offers. Derek huffs, but she knows it’s only for show. 

Alex smiles. “We can set up torches at the center of the room covered with that old orange sheet and pretend we’re camping, yeah? Just like the old days.” 

She shakes Hal awake, and then Tom, and sends them both upstairs. Later she checks in on them and finds them both in her bed. Tom is sprawled out in just his shorts, taking up most of the space. Hal is fully dressed, compact, and as close to the edge of the bed as he can get, his back turned toward Tom and his hands clutching at his pillow.

She wishes she’d been in the room for the awkwardness that must have preceded this. She thinks about climbing onto the bed with them, pushing some of Tom’s limbs over and sleeping tucked between them. She’s promised Decky that she’ll stay in his room tonight. He’s already setting out his sleeping bag on the floor, has gallantly offered to let her have the bed, and she plans to keep that him up on that offer. She grabs her bag from the floor and carefully shuts the door.

**

She spends the following afternoon going through the boxes of her belongings. Being dead for all those months has made her realize most of the stuff in here, most of the _things_ that she cherished, really aren’t all that important to her anymore. Her family didn’t want to throw anything away, but now that Alex is going through it, she thinks that most of it can be tossed in the bin. She’s making piles – the boxes to hold on to, those to toss, and the things she’ll take back to Barry with her. She’s mostly taking her clothes. 

She holds up a pair of shorts, torn and frayed.

“Oh, how I’ve missed you,” she says. Hal takes one look at them and screws up his face.

“Right. These are definitely going back with me then,” she concludes, hugging them to her chest and then tossing them into a pile of clothes she’ll be taking.

“They look like they’ve had a trip through a paper shredder,” Hal notes. 

“Exactly,” Alex agrees with satisfaction.

“Those shorts make Tom’s favorite shirt look well-preserved,” Hal continues.

“What’s that?” Tom asks, choosing that moment to enter the room and collapse onto Alex’s bed.

“Oh nothing,” Alex says, smiling. “Hal’s poking fun at our wardrobes again.” 

“Oh,” Tom says with a shrug. He reaches down off the edge of the bed and into a box beside where Hal sits on the floor. She’s pretty sure the box contains contents emptied from the drawers of the desk she never used for anything remotely studious. It probably contains miscellaneous birthday cards and loose photographs, biros, pencils, makeup that her father should definitely have just thrown in the bin. Tom pulls out a pile of photographs and begins flipping through them.

“Mr. I’d-wear-that-same-grey-polo-shirt-every-day-if-I-could,” Alex mocks as she tosses three t-shirts on top of the shorts. Hal looks down at himself. Alex nods. “Yes, that’s the shirt I’m referring to.”

“Tom!” Decky shouts. He sticks his head into Alex’s room. “Oh, there you are.”

“Erm,” Tom says and looks immediately to Alex. Alex recognizes the look and jumps to his rescue.

“Deck, I think Tom’s going to stay up here and help us out for a bit, all right?”

“My fingers are dead tired from all those video games,” Tom admits. 

Decky snorts. “All right,” he says, and then pauses. “Hal?”

Hal opens his mouth and then pauses, clearly trying to come up with an excuse.

“Do you want to stay up here and help us sort through these boxes?” Alex asks. Decky looks at her like she’s some kind of nutter. He turns to leave, but Alex cuts in before he turns the corner into the corridor. “Hey, is there anything you want in those? They’re all rubbish, so if you want anything it’s yours.”

Decky leans over, glances into the boxes. He shrugs. “Nah. I already took everything I wanted in here.”

Alex pauses, looks up. “You what?” she asks, but he’s already gone. 

“Of course, he would have,” Hal notes. “They didn’t think you’d ever be back for it.”

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Alex asks. “How quickly it’s all started to seem normal again?” 

Tom frowns and shrugs. Hal nods, but his brow is furrowed. Of course it’s different for them. Nothing was ever normal for Tom, at least not by Alex’s definition of the word, and who knows what normal meant for Hal before he became a vampire. Fifteen whatever the year. 

Hal starts opening another one of the boxes. When he sees that it’s full of clothes he sighs and sits back against the side of the bed.

Alex pulls another shirt from the box she’s been going through and then drops it into her lap and says, “Tom, you do realize my wee brother just silently called you a weakling, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Tom says, dropping the stack of photos back into their box. “Sittin’ so close to the telly was starting to get to my eyes too.”

“Ah, the trials of introducing the two of you to modern technology,” Alex says. “You’re lucky they aren’t younger. They’d be asking you to play super heroes instead of video games and then you’d really have no excuse to escape them.”

Hal scoffs. “I’m far too old for playing make-believe.”

“You don’t want to play the prince or the hero, you could always play a smaller supporting role,” Alex smiles. “Like, oh, I don’t know, the part of Tom’s loving boyfriend. I hear you have the costume and you’ve been rehearsed and everything.”

Hal looks immediately put out. “You told Alex about that?” he asks, craning his neck to look up at Tom on the bed.

Tom shrugs again. “Sure,” he says. 

Hal shakes his head. “That was Annie’s idea.” 

More and more Alex catches herself wishing she’d had more time with Annie. More and more it sounds like they might have had some things to talk about.

“What I’ve never understood,” Alex says. “Is why you didn’t just say the baby’s mother wasn’t at home.”

Hal sighs. “Tom had come up with this ridiculous story involving a barrister and a dog.”

“It wasn’t ridiculous,” Tom counters immediately. He turns to Alex. “My wife was a barrister. And we had a pet dog, a Labrador Retriever, actually.”

Hal throws up a hand as though Tom’s just proven Hal’s point. Alex has yet to hear a single valid reason as to why it was necessary for Hal to pose as Tom’s boyfriend. If Hal didn’t think that Tom’s story was plausible, why didn’t he pretend to be the father instead? The only thing she’s been able to conclude from everything that she has heard, is that Annie was onto these two far before Alex appeared on the scene.

“Did you know that Allison was hoping to become a barrister?” Alex asks Hal pointedly.

“That’s right, Hal,” Tom nods. “Not so ridiculous now, is it, Hal?” 

And here they go. Saying Hal’s name aloud twice in as many sentences. One of these days, she knows this bickering will have to boil over, and when it does, she’s willing to guarantee it’ll end with someone getting pushed up against a wall and kissed, and the more Alex thinks about it, the more she realizes she really hopes that she’s there when it happens.

“I can’t believe you – “ Hal starts.

“You can’t believe I what?” Tom returns, a challenge.

Hal looks to Alex for help, but she merely shrugs.

“I can’t believe you told Alex that story,” Hal concludes.

Tom flops onto his back, stares up at the ceiling of Alex’s room. “I told her when I thought she was gay, didn’t I? You were sitting there spitting and cussing in your chair and me and Alex had just met. I was trying to get to know her is all. What? Was it so embarrassing, Hal, pretending to be my boyfriend? I didn’t know it was such a big secret.”

Hal looks as though Tom’s just slapped him. “At the time it was, but I hardly – No, I shouldn't think I’d be embarrassed at all.”

“Aw, that’s sweet, Hal,” Alex says, but the look she shoots him is pointed. They were completely pathetic, the both of them. I shouldn’t think I’d be embarrassed? What the hell was that?

It’s apparently acceptable to Tom, because he nods and says, “All right then.”

They’re quiet for a long moment and Alex has just gone back to sorting through a box of her clothes when Hal looks up, face screwed up and frowning.

“Why did you think Alex was gay?”

“All right, you two,” Alex cuts in. “I have five more of these boxes to get through, so if you’re just going to distract me, I’m going to have no choice but to kick you out of my bedroom like I would if you were two of my annoying little brothers.”

**

Everything is fine, perfectly normal even, right up until it’s time to drive back to Barry. Alex is absorbed in her good-byes, hugs for her brothers and her father, promises to phone, text, Skype, email, and visit often. Finally it’s just her and her dad standing in the kitchen.

“All grown up,” her dad says with a shrug. 

Alex mimics his shrug and then throws up her hands. “Come on,” she says.

And just then, just as she moves in for that one last hug, Hal pushes into the house, brow furrowed and mouth frowning.

“There’s a small problem,” he says. 

Alex pauses. “What problem?” 

She expects that it must be car trouble. Hal’s car, after all, is ancient; geriatric. A classic. Whatever. She’s about to put voice to her assumption when she notices Hal’s face. 

“Is your lip bleeding?” she asks. 

Hal shakes his head, brushes her hands away when she tries to reach for him. 

“I’m fine,” he says. “But Tom’s gone.”

“What do you mean he’s gone? Wait, were you two fighting?”

Hal opens his mouth, but he doesn’t answer her questions. He glances toward Alex’s father and then back to Alex and it’s all of the answer that Alex needs. She groans.

“All right,” she says and starts pushing Hal toward the door. “Let’s go find him.”

“Do you need help?” her father calls after them, but she brushes the offer aside, wants to get Hal alone so that they can talk.

“Now?” Alex asks once they’re shut inside Hal’s car. “You decide to tell him about Leo and your dogfights now? You couldn’t have waited until we left my house, or until we got back to Barry, or I don’t know, any time that wasn’t right before we were about to spend ten hours trapped together in the bloody car?”

“It came up naturally in the course of conversation,” Hal says in that way that makes her want to follow Tom’s lead and smack Hal herself.

“How?” Alex asks. “You kept it to yourself for so long, how could it possibly come up naturally _now_.”

“Why did Tom think you were gay?” Hal asks, completely and inappropriately changing the subject.

“It came up naturally in the course of conversation,” Alex mocks. “I was trying to determine what I was joining up with! Why do you think? I didn’t know either of you. I only knew what I saw, and what I saw was inconclusive. Of course, I asked Tom. I tried to ask him in a roundabout manner and he completely misunderstood the question. He thought I was asking if he was bothered that I was gay. It was pretty fucking adorable, actually.”

Hal glares at her. “And what did he say?”

“He asked me why I was chatting you up at the café if I fancied girls,” Alex sighs. 

Hal nods and then licks at the cut on his lip.

“All right,” he says. “I suggest we go find him. Where would you go in this town if you were Tom?”

Alex sighs and settles back in her seat. “Toward the lake, I guess?” 

Her guess is good; they find Tom walking along the lake kicking at stones on the gravel path. Hal stops the car and Alex starts to get out. 

“Tom!” she shouts. 

Tom hears her and he turns, walks straight to the car, climbs into the back and slams the door.

“Oh,” Alex says. That was easier than she thought it would be. She sort of expected to spend the next hour there on the shore having a heart-to-heart about what a terrible person their good friend Hal truly is (was) and trying to reason out why they still hold onto him despite that. 

They head back to the house, finish packing the car, say a second round of good-byes. They’re on the road for twenty minutes before Tom starts talking.

“What I don’t get is, why didn’t Leo just stake ya the first chance he got?” Tom asks.

Alex laughs. She can’t help it. They’ve been driving in silence for a long while now, and Tom’s question is so matter-of-fact, so to the point.

“Alex,” Hal admonishes. Tom waits for Hal’s response, his eyebrows pulled up in a point and his mouth an exaggerated frown. Hal shakes his head. “I don’t know, Tom. I often wondered the same thing.”

“I think I woulda staked ya,” Tom admits.

“I think you probably would have,” Hal agrees. 

“Did you have him strap you to a chair while you shouted and cussed and spit at him then too?” Tom asks. 

“Yes,” Hal says. 

“Don’t forget that they boarded themselves into their flat for two years,” Alex says. “Two years shut in with Hal, can you imagine?”

“Yeah,” Tom nods. “I definitely would have staked ya.”

Hal glances over toward Alex. She smiles. 

“You should have waited and told him while you were alone on the sofa together,” she says. “Might’ve gone a bit differently.”

“Yes,” Hal agrees. “Instead of wrestling me to the ground outside your father’s home, he might’ve staked me in the privacy of ours.”

She knows that he doesn’t mean it as a euphemism, but Alex smiles at the idea of Tom “staking” Hal on the sofa anyway.

“I wouldn’t stake you now, would I,” Tom mutters. Alex snorts.

“Would you stop?” Hal asks.

“I’m sorry,” Alex says, but she isn’t. She’s in too good a mood. She feels like a weight has been lifted. Her family knows she’s alive and it’s pretty clear that Tom’s going to forgive Hal by the time they’ve pulled up to the kerb in front of the house in Barry. Alex hasn’t forgiven Hal, not really, but she’s going to crack jokes about it and Hal will just have to deal with that.

Later when Tom is asleep with his face pressed to the window, Alex says, “It’s good that you said.”

“Now you can all sleep better at night knowing the things that I got up to over sixty years ago,” Hal says.

“That isn’t the point.”

“I know," Hal notes. "We talk as though I'm still a vampire."

Hal talks as though he's still a vampire, Alex thinks. He holds back as though he's still a vampire. It's the things he says and the things he does, and after a while that leaks over to her and to Tom.

“It’s easy to forget sometimes, isn’t it?” Alex asks. She knows that things are different now. She's _alive_ , after all. She's just spent two days reuniting with her family. Of course, she knows, and she's usually the first to point it out, but she thinks that she understands where he's coming from too. It's like the exchange in her bedroom the day before. This is easy for her. She'd only been dead a few months. When she was sitting there surrounded by her family, it almost felt like it'd never happened at all, like it was just some strange dream. It isn't the same for Hal. It's been so long since Hal knew how to be anything except a vampire. Does he even remember what it was like, being human?

“It doesn’t always feel that different," Alex concludes.

Hal’s quiet for a long time. Alex gives him space to think, stares out the window at passing cars. She’s almost forgotten the last thing she said by the time he speaks again.

“No,” Hal agrees. “It doesn’t.”


	5. Chapter 5

They didn’t have sex in her bedroom in Scotland, but it doesn’t take them long once they’ve returned to Barry. They’re home less than a day before Alex puts on the torn shorts and one of her favorite loose fitting t-shirts. She’s in the bathroom fixing her hair when Hal comes to stand in the door. He watches her for a long moment before he speaks and when he does it’s in an infuriatingly assuming tone: 

“Surely you’re not planning to leave the house like that.”

“What?” Alex asks, feigning surprise at his reaction. “Of course I am.”

She bends to pick up her hair brush from where it’s fallen to the floor.

“Those shorts are indecent,” Hal declares, but he’s staring and he doesn’t look like he minds all that much. She raises her eyebrows and turns toward him.

“Oh yeah?” she asks. She leans against the edge of the sink.

The shorts aren’t sexy, not really, or they aren’t meant to be. They’re torn, yeah, and a bit ridiculously at that, but they’re longer than most of her other shorts. They’re comfortable and they’re hers and usually when she wears them it’s over a nice thick pair of black tights, perfectly respectable. She isn’t wearing the tights now though, and the largest tears cut right beneath the base of her arse. 

Truth is, she has no intention of leaving the house today. She’s been reunited with her family and now she’s back. It’s just sex with her and Hal, and she’s done taking things slow. She’s modeling these entirely to get a rise from Hal and she’s disappointed when, after another moment of blatant staring, he scoffs, turns, and walks away.

She sighs heavily, her body deflating as she holds tight to the edge of the sink.

“Come on,” she mutters, and then she starts after him, determined.

He’s made it all the way down the corridor, is about to turn the corner toward the stairs when she calls out.

“Hal!” He stops and turns to look at her.

“That’s it?” she asks with a shrug. “You’re going to stand there, stare, and then just walk away?”

When she looks back at this moment she thinks he probably played her a little, was probably onto her game from the start, because as soon as she’s within reach, he’s pulling her in, kissing her with pushy, demanding kisses. Yeah, he’s played her a little, but it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t care. He kisses her and his hands slide around her, down her back until he’s cupping her arse and then further, into the slots torn through the denim, his fingers touching her, palms warm on the bare skin of her upper thighs, and Alex thinks yes, _finally_. They’re finally properly going to do this.

He pulls her against him, firm and sudden, and she grunts into his mouth.

“Tom’s out,” she says.

“I know,” Hal agrees.

“The whole house to ourselves.”

“I thought you were leaving.”

Alex shrugs. “I was informed that I should change first. Perhaps you could help me remove these ridiculous indecent shorts.”

Things move quickly after that. In his haste to take her up on her offer, Hal tries to remove his hands from the holes in her shorts too quickly and he gets caught on the strings of torn denim. It’s less sexy than it is hilarious, and they laugh into each others’ mouths as he unbuttons the shorts and slides them down her hips. She pushes up at his shirt, her fingers running over his stomach in a way that makes him gasp and bend toward her. 

She wants to touch him everywhere. She wants to watch him do a hundred press-ups and then lick the sweat from his skin. She kisses the line of his chest, right below the base of his neck, stumbling backward as he guides her into her room and onto her bed, their clothes left in a discarded pile on the corridor floor.

It isn't – the buildup is great, gorgeous even, all exploring fingers and greedy mouths, but after that it's over fast. It's been so long for Hal, it probably isn't surprising. He’s confused when she pushes a rubber into his hand; that's how long it’s been. But then his face as he pushes into her for the first time. She’ll never forget his face. She thought she'd never have this again, but she does and she will, here with Hal again and again. 

It takes her a few seconds to get comfortable and then a few more before Hal finds a good rhythm, and then they’re off, his mouth on her jaw and her fingers digging into his upper arms. He grabs her by the thighs, pulls her closer, shifts so his knee is up on the bed, and then his next thrust hits her just right. Oh, right there. Ah, ah, yes, but that’s it; it’s too much for Hal. She can’t imagine what she must look like to him at that moment, but whatever it is, it’s apparently pretty good because it sends Hal right over the edge. He shudders as he comes, eyes staring and mouth slack and she holds him as he gasps and shakes.

It's too fast, he's finished far too soon, but he’s quick to recover, and once he does, he slides his fingers into her, works her until he finds that same angle he had before. There, oh, right there, she says, and if she was feeling patient, she thinks that maybe Hal could get her off from that slick slide of his fingers alone. She’s not patient though, she’s completely fucking desperate, and she begs him to go faster, don’t stop, whatever you do, don’t fucking stop, as she slides her hand down to join his between her legs. 

The corner of Hal’s mouth starts to pull up as he watches her, his hand still working, fingers pushing and thrusting, and he turns his head and kisses her knee, leans in and continues, a line of kisses up the inside of her thigh until he’s so close to their hands and she thinks oh God, oh God she’ll explode. 

He doesn’t put his mouth on her, and honestly it’s probably for the best, too much, God, it might have been too much. What he does is enough, hovering there for one long teasing moment before he moves on and presses his kiss low on her stomach instead, his mouth open and tongue pressed hot to her skin. It’s more than enough and the rush of her orgasm surprises her, rolls through her as her body holds tight to his fingers and she pushes up from the bed. Hal pushes right back, holds her there, his face pressed against her fluttering stomach.

She falls back to the bed, stares at the ceiling, breathing heavily. 

“Shit,” she says and she hears Hal laugh a little in response. Hal shifts and then his fingers move and she starts and gasps.

“Should I continue?” he asks and she squeezes her eyes shut and her legs shake at just the thought that –

“You’re trying to kill me,” she accuses. “That’s what this is, isn’t it?”

He slides his fingers from her and moves up the bed to lie beside her. As he shifts, he presses his thumb to his mouth, licks at one of his wet fingers and it isn’t some kind of show, he isn’t doing it for her benefit. He’s doing it for himself, tasting her.

“Fuck, seriously,” Alex says. “You really are trying to kill me.”

He wipes his hand on his thigh after that, leans over and kisses her mouth before collapsing back beside her on the bed. 

“Don’t get me wrong,” Alex breathes. “You’re not off the hook. I’m going to remember that offer and one of these days I’m going to make you spend an entire afternoon just, you know – “ she gestures down at herself “– getting me off.”

Beside her, Hal laughs. “All right,” he says.

She hates, suddenly, that he already seems more interested in her pleasure than most of the blokes she was ever with before she met him. She’d rather remember that he fucked her for all of ten seconds before he came. She thinks she might have preferred it if it had ended there, if he’d selfishly rolled away from her and left her wanting. That would have been easier, wouldn’t it? It would have been easier to discover that in the end he was just the same as all the others, a bit rubbish, really; the others who didn’t spend five hundred years as brutal killers, as weak manipulative liars. She might sleep easier if she came out on the other side of this craving less.

Oh, but who is she kidding? She’ll sleep well tonight. She’ll sleep like a baby. And that’s half the problem, isn’t it. She hates him and she wants him and if she’s feeling honest, she doesn’t actually hate him much at all, does she? 

They lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling together in silence, until finally Alex can’t take it any longer. 

“All right,” she says. She turns toward him, props herself up on her elbow and looks down at him. “Let’s get it over with. Lay it on me.”

“What?” Hal asks. His brow furrows as though he’s having a hard time concentrating on her voice.

“Tell me whatever horrible thing it is you’ve been keeping from me now,” she says, waving a hand to urge him on. “Push me away again. We’ve just had sex, right, so I think it’s about time for another round. You killed Patsy to get that promotion at the hotel, didn’t you?”

Now it’s Hal’s turn to push himself up from the bed, turning toward her. “Of course not.”

“Really?” she asks. 

“You think that I killed Patsy?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Alex says. She shrugs. “Yeah, I mean, after everything else, I did start to wonder. She obviously fancied you and you can’t pretend you didn’t play into that, just a little. It would have been easy for you to – I don’t know. Have your way with her?”

“Have my – I didn’t,” Hal says immediately, frowning.

She shrugs again. “All right, I believe you.”

“You sound disappointed!” And it’s only now that his tone really begins to sound offended. He sits up completely and all that Alex can see is the smooth expanse of his back.

“I’m not disappointed,” Alex says. She’s – she doesn’t know what she is. Scared, maybe. Maybe she’s a little scared that this won’t be as easy as it seems right now. It’s just sex, she said. They’re just using each other to get off and he’s agreed to that. She doesn’t like him and she doesn’t have to like him. She can sleep easy. 

She reaches for him, takes his arm and lets him pull her until she’s sitting beside him, and then she leans in and kisses his shoulder. He turns in toward her and she kisses his mouth. This – kissing him – is easy. His hands settle on her sides and then slide up. His thumb flicks at her nipple. Jesus, this part is really way too easy.

She pulls away from his kiss. “It’s my turn then,” she says.

“Your turn for what?” 

"I have a confession.”

"Yes?" His thumb swipes back and forth over the erect nub of her nipple. She reaches up and pulls his hand away from her and he sits back, frowning, realizing now that whatever she has to say might be serious. He waits as she takes a deep dramatic breath and then she continues.

"I was totally bullshitting you and Tom with the crap piano playing. I really am an excellent pianist."

Hal stares at her for a moment, confused, and then his face cracks a smile. "Oh?" he asks. 

"Mm," Alex nods.

Hal nods, thinks it over for a moment. “A bit like the story about your mother and S Club 7, then.”

"Exactly a bit like that, yeah," Alex agrees. The piano thing was how she learned they made for such easy targets. She’s trying hard not to smile, a full out grin that threatens to spread across her face. The effort makes her face ache and she gives in to it. Hal’s still smiling too and he shakes his head, pretends to look put out.

"If I hadn't caught you out, you never would have said a thing about that one either, would you?"

"Nope," Alex agrees. She laughs, and leans toward him, bumps his shoulder with hers. Easy.

“Terrible,” he concludes with another shake of his head. “Evil.”

**

She sleeps just fine that night. Like a fucking baby and she wakes up smiling. It’s late, her room is bright, and she stretches and then stumbles out of bed. On her way back from the toilet, she sticks her head into Hal’s room, then Tom’s and finds both empty, so she starts downstairs. She’s nearly to the bottom step when she hears their voices. She stops and listens.

“Have you spoken with her?” Hal asks.

Alex wonders if she was loud coming down the stairs, if they heard her approaching. She should keep moving. She shouldn’t stand here eavesdropping, she should enter the room. She really doesn’t think that they’re talking about anything they wouldn’t continue to say in front of her anyway, but she can’t help but wonder how they’ve been interacting when she isn’t around. She stays where she is and listens as Tom responds.

“Nah,” Tom says. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“You’re worried that you’d let on that you’re human now?” Hal guesses. “It doesn’t have to be a secret, Tom. You could explain the situation to her, that we aren’t sure how far-reaching the effects are and it’s therefore advisable for her to err on the side of caution.”

“What?” Tom asks, and Alex knows Tom’s probably asking for a different reason, but yeah, that’s pretty much Alex’s response too. This is a far cry from Hal’s advice a week or so back. 

“I mean that – “

“It ain’t just that I’m human now,” Tom corrects. “It ain’t just that. There’s other stuff too, like Natasha.”

“Natasha,” Hal repeats.

“Yeah,” Tom says. “I really liked her. Maybe even as much as I liked Allison, I don’t know. And then she died and Hatch put me in that dream with Allison. Allison, not Natasha, and I don’t – well, it’s all left me dead confused is all.”

“There usually aren’t clear answers in situations like these,” Hal says. “You just have to follow your heart.”

“How do you know what it’s saying though?”

“I don’t know,” Hal admits. “You pay attention to how you feel.”

“Like how Natasha made my insides feel all hot and weird when she smiled at me?” Tom asks.

“I – maybe,” Hal says. “Doesn’t Allison make you feel that way?”

“I guess,” Tom says. “It was different with Allison. Yvonne made me feel that way, but she was a succubus and all, that’s why I thought – Sometimes I feel it a little with you, like when we get all tense with each other, mostly, and it feels a bit the same like – I don’t know. That’s different too though, ain’t it.”

Hal’s quiet for a long time and then he says, “Yes, I suppose that it is.”

Jesus, Hal really is the worst at this. He’s a mess. Don’t rush off to Allison, Tom. It’s okay to tell Allison, Tom. Yes, getting aroused around me is totally different. What?! No wonder Tom is confused. No wonder he misunderstood back when Alex first tried to discuss it with him. Look at who he’s had to learn from! 

Has Tom brought this up to Hal before? Did Hal already know that Tom sometimes got all hot and bothered around him? He must have, right? Even Alex guessed that.

“With Allison it feels like – like when me and you are getting along real good, you know, and like I don’t know half of what she’s sayin’, just like I don’t with you, but she doesn’t mind or nowt, likes me just the same anyway. It’s like, yeah, like when you say right flattering things about me or when you looked at me like you did after I told you you were my best mate. Like my chest feels all funny, a little fuzzy and happy and excited. With Allison it’s like that, except she’s a girl and a werewolf and all too.”

There’s another long pause from Hal and then finally he says, “Right.”

That’s it, just ‘Right.’ The response pushes Alex over the edge and into action.

“Good morning,” she says, her tone cheery as she comes around the sofa and sits on the other side of Tom. She sets her hand on Tom’s knee, squeezes it just once before returning it to her own lap.

“Good morning,” Tom returns. 

Hal doesn't really acknowledge her arrival. His jaw shifts, but he stares straight ahead ,as though all those objects that Tom set on the mantel weeks ago now are suddenly incredibly interesting.

“Is everything all right?” she asks.

Hal’s head twitches and then he sighs and says, “We know you were standing there on the stairs, Alex.”

Alex sucks in a big breath and then holds up her hands in surrender, smiling. “Yeah, you caught me.”

She refuses to let Hal’s mood dull her morning (and anyway, she isn’t stupid. She knows Hal’s mood has everything to do with Alex hearing Tom say the things he’s just said and nothing to do with, you know, the sex she and Hal had yesterday.)

“Tom,” Hal says. “Did you know that Alex actually is an excellent pianist?”

Tom turns to her, surprised.

“Yeah,” she agrees with a shrug. “Turns out I was just messing with you when I made you both think I was rubbish. Surprise!”

“Oh,” Tom says, more confused by Hal’s change of subject than anything else. “Okay, yeah. Good.”

“Excuse me.” Hal stands from the sofa and then disappears into the kitchen. 

“Is he mad at you or something?” Tom asks once the doors swing shut behind Hal.

Alex thinks this over, listens as Hal turns on the water and starts moving around cups and plates, and then shrugs. “Probably,” she says. 

“I thought you were getting on good now,” Tom says. “Seemed like you were friends again, like maybe you were together even, you know, courting and that.”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees. “Yeah, we might be. Sort of. Anyway, he isn’t actually mad at me. He’s just being Hal. We’re good. Don’t worry about that, okay?” 

If Hal had stuck around he knew that Alex would make pointed comments, that she’d push them to talk about it, to explore the things that Tom had said, that Hal makes Tom’s chest flutter and his heart race and his insides burn (in a good way, not in a ‘have you thought about getting that checked out?’ way). If Hal stuck around they might actually get somewhere with this.

“So Allison, huh?” Alex prods gently.

Tom presses his lips together and then nods.

“It’s okay not to be sure,” Alex says, carefully. “It’s okay to take things slow and to keep your heart open to other possibilities. If you think you’d be more comfortable with that, you should talk to her about it. Tell her what you told Hal about Natasha. Just be honest with each other, you know, about what you’re feeling and about how you want things to go.” 

“Yeah,” Tom says again. “Maybe.”

Alex bites her lip, listens to Hal moving about in the kitchen. “And you know that it’s not – the way you feel about Allison shouldn’t just be because she’s a werewolf or even just because she’s a girl. I think it’s the same feeling no matter who the person is. It doesn’t always happen with the people that we expect, but maybe that’s okay too.”

Tom nods, but he’s frowning, thinking it over. Alex reaches for him again, rubs his knee in what she hopes is a comforting gesture.

“What happens if Allison is still a werewolf?” Tom asks after a moment.

“Nothing happens,” Alex says. “It doesn’t have to change anything.”

“If I’m human and Allison is still a wolf, that changes a lot,” Tom says. “And I ain’t scared or nowt, but I just wonder if she’d still like me knowing that I’m not the same as when we met.”

“We like you just as much,” Alex points out. “Why do you think that Allison would feel differently?”

“You’re human now too though,” Tom says. “And you’re, I don’t know. You’re Hal and Alex. It ain’t the same.”

“Oh, just Hal and Alex,” Alex repeats, nodding. “I see how it is.” She’s messing with him and he responds with what can only be described as a withering look. He must have learned that face from Hal.

“You know what I mean,” Tom says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex concedes. “Why do you think it would be different?”

“I don’t know,” Tom says. “When Hatch put me in that dream with Allison, we were both human and she still liked me just the same.”

“You see?” Alex nods. “Nothing to worry about.”

Hal pushes back through the kitchen doors and into the room. He has a tea towel over his arm and two glasses in his hand. As they watch, he moves behind the bar and sets the glasses back on their shelf. 

“It felt odd though,” Tom continues. “Me and Allison and the two of you not there at all. It didn’t feel real. How do I know he wasn’t just lying to me about Allison still liking me too? He was showing me what he thought I wanted, and he was right, mostly, but he left a lot of important stuff out, like you and Hal and like about how without the wolf, me and Allison ain’t got nothing in common.”

Hal makes a noise and they turn to look at him. He shakes his head.

“If the only thing that brought you together was that you were both werewolves, and if Allison can’t see the good in you now that that is no longer the case, then she doesn’t deserve you.”

“He’s right,” Alex says with a shrug.

Tom thinks about this and then nods.

“Yeah,” Tom agrees. “Maybe.”

She spends the rest of the morning lounging about watching television with Tom. Hal comes in and out of the room, sometimes sits with them for a moment or two, comments on the plot or the characters (Alex has Tom watching _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. It started when Alex made a crack about Hal’s emotional issues, comparing him to one of the characters, and Hal sniffed and turned up his nose, said “I highly doubt that it is at all like that” in that very Hal way of his, but Tom was interested, and they’ve been slowly working through the series since). Alex wants to talk to Hal about his conversation with Tom. She wants to ask him what he’s thinking, but she knows it’s better to wait until he isn’t on the defensive, until he isn’t expecting it from her. She says nothing for hours and she notices as soon as Hal starts to relax, sitting with them a little longer and smiling at her when she catches his eye.

She makes it to mid-afternoon. Hal hasn’t checked in with them in a while and she heads upstairs in search of him. 

“Hal,” she calls from the stairs, but he doesn’t answer. She finds him on the sofa in his bedroom, a book in his hand. She shuts the door, collapses onto the cushion beside him. She takes the book from his hand and tosses it onto the table.

“Alex, I’m reading that,” Hal says, leaning forward to reach for it. He acts put out, irritated, but when she pulls him toward her and kisses him, he forgets the book immediately and kisses her back.

She imagines where this might go, the two of them here on his little sofa. She imagines herself climbing over him, straddling him, her hips moving against his as she sucks at his mouth. It’s a tempting thought, but sadly, it isn’t the reason she’s here, at least not quite yet. That can come next, but the talking comes first. 

She pulls away from him, her hands holding his face, stopping him from leaning forward to kiss her again. 

“Why did you tell Tom about Leo?” Alex asks. She sounds a little breathless, and she swallows and clears her throat.

“Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?” Hal asks. He reaches up, pulls her hands from his face, and then curls his fingers around the back of her neck, pulling her in to kiss again.

Alex kisses him once more. “So you did it for me?”

She doesn’t believe that for a second.

Hal’s hand drops to rest on her leg. 

“What?” he asks with a sigh, finally catching on to the fact that she actually plans to have this conversation.

“It’s because the trip to visit my family brought you close again, isn’t it? The hours trapped in the car, sharing my bed, spending that time together.”

“Maybe,” Hal says. He shifts beneath her, sits up higher against the cushions, and she moves off and settles back beside him.

“I don’t get it,” Alex admits. “Why in the world, when you have Tom down there telling you you’ve gotten him all hot and bothered, would you let him think that it’s any different than it was the other times he’s felt that?”

Hal wipes a hand over his face. “Alex –” 

“We don’t have all the time in the world,” Alex points out. “Not anymore.” 

He stands and starts to pace the room. She thinks he might open the door, kick her out into the corridor, but he doesn’t. He sits down on the edge of his bed instead. 

“Look, I’m not pushing. I just –”

Hal’s laugh interrupts what she’s saying. 

“You aren’t pushing?” he repeats.

“All right,” she concedes. “So I’m pushing, but that’s the only way anything ever happens around here! Were you listening to yourself down there? Tom was giving you an opening!”

“No, he wasn’t,” Hal says, his tone dismissive. “Tom is confused, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Alex says, as though it’s some kind of revelation. She frowns and then nods. “Tom is confused. And why do you think that is, huh? What could possibly have left him confused about something like this?”

“Natasha,” Hal says. “He had feelings for her.”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees. “Feelings that he just said he also had for you too. Feelings that confuse him, and because he’s confused and because he’s Tom, he thinks it’s something completely different than what it actually is.”

Hal doesn’t say anything, so Alex goes on, “Look, yes, you’re right. I’m pushing, but if I hadn’t pushed, you never would have made any sort of move with me either. Not if there wasn’t blood involved. We’re only here now because I pushed. I’ve had to push us every bloody step of the way. You’re so – “ 

She bends her fingers into claws and shakes them at him. 

That’s the truth of it. She’s said it before and it’s still so true: without the blood, Hal’s a coward. Sure, maybe he’s better now than he was as a vampire, but even now, if Alex hadn’t brought it up, if he hadn’t been sure that it was what she wanted – where would they be? 

And really, _with_ the blood Hal was a coward too. Hal’s just – yeah, a coward with a list of excuses for everything. He’s lost the vampire excuse now, but he still has Alex and he still has Allison, and apparently he’s not ready to let go of either excuse, not yet. 

It all seems so inevitable to Alex. Shouldn’t they put it all on the table now before everyone gets in deeper than they already are and someone gets hurt? Shouldn’t they say it all now before Tom and Allison really _are_ together, before one of Tom and Hal’s fights does boil over and Tom has to deal with the fact that he’s cheated on someone he loves? She hopes that’s not how it would play out, but it feels like a real possibility to her, and it would break her heart to watch them all try to move past that.

“Perhaps if things don’t work out with Allison, we can consider…”

Hal trails off and looks away. 

It’s progress. It’s progress, getting him to admit that much, but it isn’t enough, is it? If Tom’s going to go to Allison, he should go to her having all of the facts. He should know why Hal’s afraid to hug him. He should know why Hal held tight to the edge of Alex’s bed. He should know that there’s room for him here, and if he’s looking for love, he doesn’t need to leave this house to find it. 

“You don’t have all of the time in the world,” Alex says again. She stands and comes to sit beside Hal on the bed. “Tom never did.”

Hal huffs a little. “Why is this so important to you? Why do you want to – you’re that eager to share this?”

Alex laughs.

“To share what?” she scoffs. “We aren’t dating. We aren’t in love. This is just sex, Hal. That’s what we’ve decided, haven’t we? I’m not talking about you running off and shagging random people you meet on the street. We’re talking about Tom.”

“I know that.”

“Tom and I – we’ve been sharing you from the moment we met. Do you really think, if it was just the two of us, that we would have lasted this long? It’s never been just you and I, and for it to be just the two of us now, it feels – it feels strange and unbalanced.”

Hal squints at her and she wonders if he’s even listening anymore. He looks her up and down, spends some time staring at her – well, her breasts, apparently, focuses on them until she snaps her fingers and he looks up at her face, her eyebrows high and her eyes wide.

“Are you interested in Tom?” Hal asks, suddenly. “Sexually?”

It isn’t where she expected Hal to be going with this, and she continues to stare at him for a long moment before she answers.

“I don’t know,” she says. He looks like he’s waiting for her to say more, so she does. “I love Tom, of course, but I worry that anything more than that would seem a bit weird, like sleeping with – I don’t want to say my brother, because it isn’t that, not really, but almost? But if you were to –” She pauses to roll her eyes at herself. “Let’s just say, I’m not entirely opposed to the idea of a, you know, group arrangement.”

“A group arrangement,” Hal repeats.

“Not a group,” Alex corrects. “Not any group. Just this group. Just the three of us.”

Hal lets out a breath and for a second she thinks he might be about to laugh. He doesn’t laugh, he reaches for her, kisses her, his tongue dipping into her mouth as his hands push up beneath her shirt. Later she wonders if the kiss was an attempt to change the subject, end an uncomfortable conversation, or if it was a cover for something else, a physical reaction to her words, to the suggestion that he really could have both her and Tom, that it actually is a possibility for them. 

It’s weird, sure. It’s an unconventional suggestion, but what about them isn’t weird? What about them isn’t unconventional?

**

Hal’s sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea. Alex watches him. She thinks about how the tea has warmed his tongue and she wants him to slide it hot against hers, against her. All she can think about is –

She clears her throat and he looks up from his paper. 

“So,” she says as she leans forward over the table toward him. “Oral sex. I imagine you’re pretty good at it, yeah?”

Hal freezes and sets down his mug. He presses his lips together and then he nods. “I’ve had some experience in that arena.”

“Of course, you have,” Alex smiles. “Vampires, right? It’s all oral fixation with you lot, isn’t it?”

Hal is watching her carefully. “Something like that,” he says. “Are you suggesting –”

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,” Alex confirms.

Hal carefully folds his newspaper, sets it on the table, then picks up his mug and carries it to the sink. She thinks maybe she’s misunderstood his interest here, maybe he’s taking his time trying to figure out how to get out of this, and she’s just about to back off, back track, when he turns to her and says, “Upstairs then?” 

It’s funny how comfortable it’s become between them. It was all tense corridor kisses and endless confessions and fights and now that it seems they’ve finally passed that, it feels easy and comfortable and close. It’s so casual that they’ve skipped right back from being completely rubbish at it, to being almost perfectly matched. It’s nice. It’s sexy and fun and, God, it just feels really good to feel again. 

It’s changing things with Tom too, easing some of the tension between Tom and Hal. Not a lot, not entirely, but some, and then one day before the full moon, Hal leans back from kissing her and asks, “Have you ever thought about kissing Tom?” 

“Uh, I – “ Alex shakes her head, surprised by the question. They’ve working at that whole honesty thing since, well, since just before this started and answering questions like Hal’s can only help to encourage Hal to reciprocate, so without over-thinking it too much Alex says, “Sure, maybe I’ve thought about it a bit, but never like – have you?”

“You know that I have,” Hal says. He leans down and kisses her shoulder. “You’ve thought about me kissing Tom too, haven’t you?”

Alex closes her eyes. God, where are they going with this? “Yes.”

“You must like the idea,” Hal pushes, his mouth close to her ear. “You must like the picture it paints. You wouldn’t push so hard if you didn’t.”

Alex shrugs, tries to seem casual. “The idea isn’t unattractive to me,” she admits.

Hal kisses her, sucks teasingly at her bottom lip. This is so far from what she expected it to be when they met. It’s so far from anything she ever imagined. She sets a hand on his shoulder, leans back away from his mouth.

“When I first stepped into that café and saw you mopping the floor in those blue booties, I don’t think I ever could have imagined we’d end up here.”

“No?” Hal asks and kisses her again. He isn’t really listening to her, she can tell, but she continues anyway.

She turns her face away so that his next kiss lands on her cheek. 

“I imagined it a lot differently, actually, yeah,” she continues as though he’s asked. “I thought the fact that you were shy and awkward meant that you were inexperienced. I imagined the sex might be that way too; awkward, a bit fumbly, but gentle, you know? Sweet? I actually thought I’d be teaching you a thing or two.”

“Mm,” Hal says. He kisses the line of her jaw. “Funny.”

“I guess I imagined it being a bit like… Well, like shagging Tom, actually,” Alex finishes. “New and special.”

Hal pulls back a little. He’s listening now.

“You’ve thought about sex with Tom?” he asks, bringing them right back to the start of the conversation.

His eyes are dark and heavy, watching her, lips parted as he waits for her answer.

She tries to act unaffected. She shrugs. 

“That’s normal, isn’t it?” she asks. “Doesn’t everyone wonder what it might be like, shagging their friends, even if just the once?” 

It probably isn’t normal. It probably says something about the sorts of people that Alex was calling her friends, she doesn’t know, but it doesn’t matter. That isn’t why she brought it up. Yeah, she’s thought about it, mostly in passing. Yeah, she’s wondered what it might be like, being Tom’s first, showing him how it’s done. She’d never – or she thought she’d never – but yeah, sure, of course she’s thought about it, even if never very seriously. She was a ghost after all. It all seemed pretty impossible to her anyway.

Hal closes his eyes and swallows. 

She slides her hand over his thigh, presses her palm to the front of his trousers. He’s already hard and he pushes up against her.

“And you?” she asks. This was the point, after all, getting him to talk about it.

“You know that I have,” Hal repeats. The words sound thicker now and she swears she feels him grow harder beneath her hand. She plucks at the button of Hal’s trousers.

“What would you do?” she asks. “With Tom, I mean?”

She unbuttons Hal’s trousers, pulls at the zip and then slides her hand inside.

“Well?” she pushes. “You’ve thought about it. What have you thought? Is it all long meaningful handshakes on the beach at sunset?”

Hal lets out a breath, almost a laugh, smiles for just a second before his face slips back to serious.

“I want to kiss his throat,” Hal says. “His Adam’s apple and his chest where it’s exposed above the neckline of those vests he wears. I want to press my teeth to the bare skin of his shoulder.”

“Your teeth,” Alex repeats. 

Hal nods and she remembers how he bit her shoulder when they were on the sofa together, when they decided that this was the direction that they were headed.

“Like a vampire thing?” she asks. It never occurred to her at the time, but now when he says it aloud…

Hal ignores her question and continues. “I want to tongue the cross tattoo on his calf and know that even if I wasn’t human, even if I wasn’t well past it as a vampire, religious iconography on Tom’s skin would never harm me. I want to – to take him in my mouth.”

Alex feels her arousal curl low within her and she shifts closer to Hal on her bed.

“I was joking a bit the other day, but this oral fixation is a serious thing with you, isn’t it?” she asks, her hand kneading him through the thin fabric of his pants. “Not that I’m complaining, mind.”

“I want him to fuck me with the same determination and intensity that he brought to our fights,” Hal says.

“Okay,” Alex breathes. “I fucking knew it.” She knew there was more to those fights for Hal. She’d sort of imagined the fucking would go the other way, but the picture Hal is painting right now – that’s good too.

“I want to see his face when he comes and watch the way he twists.”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees. “Yeah, okay, and why aren’t you doing anything to make this happen again?”

He thrusts up into the palm of her hand and then looks at her, focuses on her, and says, “I want to sit back and watch as you show Tom how it’s done. I want to watch you pleasure yourself on his shaft.”

She stares back at him, surprised and very much aroused.

His statement is clearly calculated, but she has no doubt there is truth to his words. He’s bringing the conversation back around to her, forcing her to admit to herself that maybe this was never just about Tom and Hal. Maybe it was always a bit about her too. 

“Jesus, Hal.”

She slides her hand from Hal’s trousers and begins unbuttoning her own, fully intending to mount Hal, to play out some version of that fantasy. She’s just unhooked the button when there’s a knock at the door.

They both freeze immediately.

“Is everyone decent?” Tom asks from the other side.

Alex looks over at Hal. Hal looks turned on and mildly terrified, which is probably why Alex rolls away from him, refastens her jeans, and says, “Yeah, Tom, you can come in.”

“What?” Hal hisses and scrambles to fasten his own trousers, shifting on the bed until he’s sitting up. He reaches for one of Alex’s pillows and sets it on his lap just as Tom pushes through the door. Tom doesn’t hesitate, just climbs onto the bed with them. 

Oh, this is good, Alex thinks. Maybe if they play this right, they’ll –

Beside Tom, Hal squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath. Alex can’t help it. She smiles and it stretches wide and she knows it’s inappropriate and she looks ridiculous.

When Tom doesn’t say anything right away, Alex asks, “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah,” Tom shrugs. “It’s good. Tomorrow night’s the full moon.”

Hal gathers himself, opens his eyes and clears his throat. “How do you feel?” 

Tom shrugs again. “Fine. Good. I mean, a little funny, like something’s missing and I itch for it under my skin, but mostly, yeah, it’s okay.”

Tom’s wearing his grey vest and Alex catches herself staring at his shoulders. She imagines Hal scraping his teeth over Tom’s skin, imagines herself pressing her lips to Tom’s throat. She shakes her head and looks down at her hands. 

“I’ve been thinkin’ though,” Tom says. “What if Allison _is_ a werewolf, and she accidentally scratched me a couple months down the road, do I turn back into the wolf?”

Hal looks up, looks past Tom and catches Alex’s eye. She feels instantly guilty. Here they are, shut away, putting words to Hal’s sexual fantasies, and Tom’s been out there, dwelling on God knows what.

“I suppose that you would,” Hal says. 

Tom nods. “Would it be the same wolf, do you reckon? Or a whole new one that I wouldn’t know at all.”

“I don’t know,” Hal says. “It’s an interesting question. You’ve been thinking about this a lot, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” Tom says. “Yeah, a bit. Like what happens if there are still vampires out there and you get bit again? Or what would happen if Allison scratched you and Alex ended up a vampire and I ended up a ghost?”

Jesus, look at him. Alex has spent all her time as a human stuffing food in her face and thinking about shagging Hal and then _actually_ shagging Hal, and Tom’s been over here thinking about the nature of werewolves and attraction and supernatural possibility. Even when she knows Tom, loves him with all her heart, she still manages to underestimate him.

“Do you miss it?” Hal asks. “Do you miss the wolf?”

“Sometimes,” Tom shrugs. “A little.”

“Do you miss the vampire?” Alex asks. 

“No,” Hal says, but after a moment he amends his answer. “There were certain aspects that weren’t entirely objectionable.”

He’s wording it carefully, a bit too carefully, which leads Alex to conclude that though he’d never admit it, he probably misses some of the objectionable aspects just slightly as well. 

“Well, I don’t miss being dead,” Alex says.

“Yeah, I like having you alive and solid,” Tom agrees.

Alex nudges him with her arm, then reaches across Tom, grabs the pillow from Hal’s lap and uses it to swat at Tom in an attempt to lighten the mood. Hal flails a little and tries to grab it back but his efforts are ignored as Tom retaliates by rolling onto Alex and pinning her down.

“You see?” he says. “Can’t rentaghost out of this one anymore now, can ya?”

“Jesus,” Hal says, and he sounds irritated, exasperated, but Alex guesses there’s a bit of arousal still mixed in there as well.

Tom’s close and smiling and Alex wonders suddenly if maybe she’s the one who needs to make the first move here. What would Tom do if Alex leaned forward and kissed him?

She doesn’t. She can’t. This isn’t about her, not really. She might have thought about Tom in passing, stupid meaningless thoughts while she was stuck as a ghost, but she’s willing to guarantee that Tom hasn’t thought much about her romantically, and certainly not sexually. If she kissed Tom now, it would confuse everything. It would most likely be an embarrassing mess. Whatever happens, it has to come from Hal. It can only make sense from Hal. And maybe from there things might come together for all three of them, or maybe they won’t, and that’s fine too.

Alex’s momentary conflict must be visible, because as she watches, Tom’s smile falters and he stiffens a little and then pulls away.

“Sorry,” he says.

Alex reaches for him immediately. “No, don’t – ” 

She sits up and pulls him into a hug. He resists for only a short moment before he hugs her back, his arms wrapped tightly around her. Beside them Hal is quiet and still. Alex leans in and presses her lips to Tom’s shoulder. She remembers holding him tight, the first person she touched when they realized that they were human. She remembers breathing in the smell of sweat on his skin and thinking it was the best thing she’d ever smelled, because she could hardly remember smelling anything that came before. He doesn’t smell like sweat now, just like him, really, like Tom. Good and warm. 

It’s Tom who pulls away first and Alex nods and lets him go. 

“Okay,” Tom says with a smile and a shrug. “Well, I’ll let you two get back to kissing and that, I reckon.”

“Tom,” Hal says. He reaches out for Tom, his hand on the bare skin of Tom’s arm. “We should celebrate.”

“Celebrate?” Alex asks.

“Yes, we should do something,” Hal presses. “To commemorate Tom’s first full moon as a human. Perhaps dinner out.”

“What, like the three of us?” Tom asks. Hal’s fingers, merely touching Tom at first, begin to slide around Tom’s arm and Tom looks down at Hal’s hand and then back up at Hal.

“Of course the three of us,” Hal confirms with a nod that looks just a bit too earnest. Alex squints at him.

“I thought you said –” Tom starts, but then he stops, seems to change his mind. “All right, yeah. That’d be real nice, Hal.”

Hal smiles, nods again, and only then seems to realize that his hand is still on Tom’s arm. He pulls away a bit too quickly and Tom starts at the sudden retreat, but he’s clearly used to Hal being a little weird about these things by now, because he doesn’t seem to think anything of it.

“Cheers, mate,” Tom says. He stands and then backs away from the bed, turns and shuts the door on his way out of the room.

Alex stares at the door for a long moment and then she shakes her head and says, “You should just kiss him. Just pull him in and kiss him.”

“What?” Hal asks.

“Why not?” Alex asks. “It’s straightforward, to the point. It’s unmistakable, really, and I think you need to be direct about this. It’d work for me.”

Hal exhales and shakes his head. “I’m not going to do that.”

“You’d be crazy not to,” Alex says.

“I thought you said I don’t deserve him,” Hal counters.

“Oh, you don’t,” Alex confirms. “You really don’t. And hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’ll kiss him and he’ll respond by punching you in the face again. Maybe that ‘hot excited feeling’ in his gut really is different when it’s you he’s feeling it for. I doubt it though. And you’re pretty good with kissing.”

“Thank you,” Hal says. “I’m still not going to do that.”

“God,” Alex sighs, falls back onto the bed, the pillow clutched to her chest. “You’re infuriating. Now you have me wishing I _was_ still a ghost so I could possess you and force you to act.”

“Ghosts can’t actually possess people,” Hal points out.

“As far as you know,” Alex amends. 

Hal pulls a face. “So I do what you say, just kiss Tom. What then? We can call what we’re doing whatever you want. It can just be sex and that’s fine, but that wouldn’t be fine with Tom. Tom isn’t like us. He wouldn’t want whatever this is. He wouldn’t understand it.”

“You don’t know that,” Alex says. “You assume it, but you don’t actually know. You’re just trying to come up with a new excuse. And anyway, who said it would just be sex with Tom? I never said that.”

“You want me to engage in a relationship with Tom while you and I continue to use each other for sex,” Hal clarifies. His face looks pinched, his brown furrowed in judgment. “You do realize how ridiculous that sounds, right?”

Alex shrugs. “Maybe that’s not how it would go? Maybe we wouldn’t just be using each other for sex anymore. Maybe that’s what ends this fling.”

“Ends it?”

“No – not _ends_ it,” Alex clarifies. “Just changes it.” She sits up and tosses her pillow back at him. “I don’t know, all right? I don’t have some master plan here. We just see what happens.”

Hal thinks this over.

“You really think this could work?” he asks, as though he’s surprised to suddenly discover that she was serious all along. “You really think polyamory is the answer for us?”

Polyamory. Jesus, he’s so… Hal. 

“Why not?” she asks, fully expecting him to confirm once more that she’s being ridiculous. She isn’t though. It makes more sense to her than anything else. It makes more sense to her than Hal and Alex on their own. It makes more sense than Tom leaving them, leaving Barry and moving closer to Allison. Tom hasn’t suggested that yet, but it’ll happen eventually, won’t it?

“And it’s what you want?” Hal asks.

“Well, yeah,” she says, though she feels like she’s really only just started to realize how much. “It’s what I’ve been saying from the start. Is it what you want?”

“The two of you?” he asks. He shakes his head, makes a noise that sounds like the start of a laugh, though he isn’t smiling. “Of course it is.”

It’s the first time he’s ever said it as though it isn’t hopeless, ridiculous, or impossible. It’s the first time he’s ever said it as though he believes that maybe he really could have them both. She feels the possibility of it swell in her chest and she closes the distance between them and kisses his mouth. Hal kisses her back, but he’s distracted, thinking over all that’s been said. After a moment he leans his head back to look at her.

“You actually think Tom might consider –” Hal starts, but he trails off, doesn’t finish the thought.

“You’re never going to know unless you tell him,” she says. “You’ll never know unless you ask.”

Hal nods, and for the first time Alex thinks he might actually do something about it all.

**

"Ah," Alex says, looking around the restaurant once they’ve been seated. "It's nice." 

She hasn't really – of course she knows that there are nice things in Barry. She just hasn't really had much chance to see any of them until now.

Tom nods. "I been here twice before."

"Really?" Hal asks, surprised. "Twice?"

"Yeah, the first time was with that Cutler," Tom says. "I had to buy a new shirt and everything. Even then I didn't know – he had to get me a tie and help me tie it. Leaned over the table and wrapped it around my neck. Everyone was staring. It was a bit weird, but all right."

Hal's hand slips and knocks against his knife, the sound of the metal hitting his plate loud in the restaurant. 

"Hal?" Alex asks. 

Hal clears his throat. "You said at the hotel that you never wore neckties, that McNair said a vampire could use a tie to choke or –"

"He did say that," Tom agrees. "And he’s right. It's dangerous walking about with a rope tied 'round your neck. But Cutler picked the restaurant and ties are required. That's what he said."

"And you let Cutler tie –"

Tom shrugs. "Well, yeah, Hal. I thought I could trust him, didn't I?" Tom is getting frustrated with Hal's questions. If Alex doesn’t change the subject, they'll start an argument right here in the restaurant. 

Tom pulls at his bow tie, suddenly uncomfortable. "I reckon I overdressed a bit this time though."

"You look good, Tom," Alex assures him. "You look smart. Dapper, even. Hal, on the other hand, forgot his tie."

"Yes," Hal agrees. "The restaurant must have relaxed its dress code since you were here with… Cutler."

All of the men around them are wearing ties, but no one says any a thing to Hal. No one even glances at him funny. 

Tom shrugs and then smiles and reaches into the pocket of his jacket. His smile slips. "Hal, mate, can I borrow your mobile? I left mine back at the house."

Hal hands Tom his mobile phone. 

"Thanks," Tom says. "I tried to ring Allison this morning, but she weren't picking up – last night being the full moon and all."

"Yes," Alex smiles. "We know." Tom wasn't about to let them forget. He was jittery all afternoon, pacing the house, waiting for the moon to rise, and when it did, he rushed out into the garden and stared up at the sky. Hal and Alex went out to join him and they stood there together, just staring at it. 

“That’s it then,” Tom said.

“You’re definitely human,” Hal agreed with a smile.

Alex thought that was the moment that Hal should have done something, said something, made his move. It would have been a perfect romantic gesture standing together under Tom’s first full moon. Alex would have loved it and she thought Tom probably would have too. Despite Alex’s pointed looks, Hal didn’t make a move, and now here they are at dinner, Hal handing Tom his mobile phone so that Tom can start pulling way from them when they’re meant to finally be pulling him in.

Tom smiles and nods, leaving the table so as not to disturb the other patrons. Alex waits until he’s left the main dining room and then she turns to Hal.

"So, Tom and Cutler, eh?" Alex asks.

"Hm?" Hal asks, as though he’s already forgotten.

"What was that? I didn't quite get it. Jealousy or arousal?"

Hal shakes his head. "I didn't realize that Tom and Cutler had – that they'd spent so much time together."

"That doesn't really answer my question, does it?" Alex asks, but she lets it go. “I get that that probably threw you off your game a bit, but you’ll say something when he gets back, yeah?”

Hal’s distracted, staring off at nothing, not answering her.

“Hal?”

He leans in toward her. "You see him, don't you? Look how excited he is. For Allison, not for – " he gestures between them. “Whatever this is.”

Alex holds up her hands, palms out. “Jesus, Hal. I was only asking if you needed to cover your lap with your napkin, that’s all.”

She sighs and sits back.

“All right,” she says. “Look, Cutler’s not exactly someone I want to be thinking about tonight either. I’m dropping it, okay?”

“Thank you,” Hal says.

She sets her hand over Hal’s and squeezes it, a show of support. She realizes suddenly that Natasha must have been the other person Tom came here with, and she’s glad that Tom didn’t bring that up as well. What a way to set a mood, huh? 

After a moment, Hal turns his hand beneath hers so that she can hold it properly, and when she does, his thumb rubs softly back and forth across her skin; a caress. Alex catches herself smiling, grinning even.

“What now?” Hal asks. He pulls his hand away from hers and leans back in his seat.

She shrugs. “No, it’s nothing. Just – this is all actually going better than I thought it would. It was a bit rough at the start, and yeah, I know, I know, that was just, what, a week or two ago? But now, I don’t know.” It all suddenly feels like it has more potential than she ever thought it might.

Hal thinks this over and then nods. “It’s going better than I thought it would too,” he admits. He still seems a bit distracted, but he smiles back at her. “Your family took it really well.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “I really didn’t think the whole ‘I banged my head and lost my memory’ thing would’ve worked.”

It only takes another moment before the tension in their banter fully dissipates and they shift back toward flirting. Hal’s trying a bit too hard but she indulges him, listens as he goes on about the emotional latitude that being human has allowed him, as though they haven’t spent the last few weeks spinning their wheels, moving forward in centimeters when they even moved at all. She thinks maybe he’s just practicing, trying to gather the confidence to say something to Tom, and so she smiles and supports, but when Tom returns, Hal shuts down almost instantly. He stares off into space while Tom talks about the plans he’s just made with a newly-confirmed-to-be-human Allison. 

Alex is sure that she knows what he’s doing. Hal is backing out of the entire thing, chickening out completely. Hal and Alex, Tom and Allison, and that’s fine, it’s picture perfect, it really is, and Tom’s smile seems genuine enough that Alex can’t help but smile with him. 

And hey, maybe Hal is even right this time. Maybe it really is better to wait and see if things work out with Allison before approaching Tom. Alex never would have been able to sit here and let it happen this way if she was in Hal’s shoes, but that doesn’t mean that her way is definitely right and Hal’s is absolutely wrong.

And that’s when Hal asks the waiter for a pack of cards.

“Why do you want a pack of cards?” Alex asks.

“Shouldn’t the question be, why did the waiter happen to have some?” Hal asks. “Think of a card.”

She listens as Hal starts to challenge them, as he starts to explain, and suddenly she really wishes that this _was_ just another case of Hal being a coward and holding back with Tom. She really wishes that was what she was dealing with here, but this isn’t that at all anymore, is it? Instead it’s so much worse, the very last thing that she wants to hear, the last thing that she wants to believe.

“Here we have everything we could want,” Hal reasons as he explains why the world they’re in cannot possibly be real.

Alex pauses. “No, it’s not like that.” How can that be true? “We’re just – we’re just getting everything we deserve now.”

But that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? She said it herself, Hal doesn’t deserve any of this. Hal doesn’t deserve her or Tom or this second chance. She said it herself and then she proceeded to ignore it. She pursued him anyway, pushed him toward Tom, and now – that’s not how life works, Hal says, and he’s right. 

But no, he isn’t right. This hasn’t been easy at all! Yeah, her family believed that lame story about her hitting her head, but what else here has been easy? 

Okay, the sex with Hal, but that’s it, and getting to that? That wasn’t easy. This stuff with Tom hasn’t been easy. Tom hasn’t had an easy time reconciling his feelings for Allison or Natasha or Hal. 

“Maybe Alex is right,” Tom interjects. “Maybe this was always meant to happen. We’re together. Alex has got her family, I’ve got Allison –” Hal’s jaw is tight and he looks away from Tom. 

“– you and Alex have got each other, even though it’s a bit weird.”

It really starts to hit her as she’s making jokes about dessert and Butch Cassidy, as the restaurant patrons turn to stare and then stand and move toward them. 

Dead girls don’t come back from the dead. They don’t magically regenerate their bodies because their bodies are rotting away in the ground somewhere. Alex knows that. She saw it. Hatch made sure that she saw it up close and personal. 

Dead girls stay dead, and none of this is real at all. She’s still decomposing six feet under and Hal’s still a vampire and she stands beside Tom and behind Hal and she feels her heart race and she knows that that’s a lie too. Not even that can be real.

They’ve been sitting here arguing about petty bullshit and Hal is right – what has Hatch been doing to the world while they’ve been distracted? 

“All right, then,” Tom says. “So now what do we do?” 

The patrons move slowly, like zombies in some film, or you know, a bit like the people Hatch possessed at that television studio back before this all started, really. Yeah, an awful lot exactly like that.

“Save the world,” Hal says. “You know, the usual.”

Alex laughs and it surprises her. She’s dead and Hal’s a vampire and they’ve never once managed to save anything. Not ever. 

"All right," Alex says. "Yeah, saving the world. That sounds like a great plan, Hal. But uh...how about right now, huh? What do we do right now?"

“I don’t know,” Hal says. Hatch’s pod people have stopped. They’re just standing there, surrounding them, blocking them in.

“Are they human?” Tom asks. “Can we kill ‘em?”

“I don’t know,” Hal says again, louder this time.

“I got out of Hatch’s last dream by staking him,” Tom reasons. “Maybe we stake these people, that gets us out.” He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a stake. 

Hal glances back over his shoulder, sees the stake in Tom’s hand, and starts in a way that would be comical if they didn’t have a restaurant full of zombie pod people staring them down.

"You forgot your mobile, but you remembered a stake?" Hal asks, his tone incredulous and a little accusing.

“Okay, does it really seem like a good idea to start interrogating the person most likely to be able to fight his way out of this?” Alex mutters. 

Tom narrows his eyes. "McNair said you should always be prepared. That meant stakes, Hal, not mobile phones."

These two. Unbelievable. 

Tom turns and grabs one of the chairs from their table, smashes it against the floor. The noise is loud, but the pod people don’t move. They just keep staring and to be honest, it’s really starting to creep Alex out.

Tom hands one of the chair legs to Hal, keeps one for himself, and gives Alex the sharper stake he brought from the house. She stares down at it in her hand. She hardly knows how to use it. She’s never had to defend herself before, not really, and definitely not like this. She takes a step closer to Tom and the zombie pod people closest to her take a step forward to make up the difference. She tries stepping back toward them again and they stay where they are, just staring.

“Okay,” she breathes. “You’re fucking creepy, aren’t you?”

“So we don’t think they’re human, right?” Tom asks, his voice louder now, a little more urgent.

“I don’t see how they can be,” Hal confirms.

“Right,” Tom says, but he stands there a moment longer, contemplating. 

No one moves until finally Tom comes to a decision, turns fast and punches his makeshift stake into the chest of the restaurant patron standing closest to him. The man shouts once and then crumbles to the floor with a thud. He doesn’t turn to dust, but there’s no blood either, just a ragged looking hole through the man’s white dress shirt.

“So definitely not human then,” Alex says. “Is it just me, or is that somehow more disgusting than if he was actually bleeding?” 

It doesn’t make sense. Tom punched Hal in the face and Hal’s lip bled. Why wouldn’t these people bleed just the same? Unless perhaps those details were only filled in where they were thought to matter. It didn’t matter if the restaurant patrons seemed real. The Devil was counting on the fact that they wouldn’t be looking too closely. He was counting on them being too wrapped up in each other to care, and he was almost _almost_ right.

Alex stands there, just stands there a bit stunned, as though she’s become one of Hatch’s pod people herself. She stands there and watches as Tom stakes five more of the patrons, as Hal takes down the three in front of him. The remaining pod people move and shift around them, trying to fill the gaps in the circle.

“We’ll have to kill them all,” Tom notes, and as though on cue, the doors to the restaurant push open and people from the street start filing in, their eyes empty and staring.

“Maybe not,” Tom amends. “Okay, who’s got another idea? Alex?”

“Um,” Alex says. She looks down at the stake in her hand. She stares at the patrons and she wonders if her father could bleed. If they’d pushed a stake into Decky’s chest, what would have happened?

Tom grabs the stake from Alex’s hand, takes out two at once, and then Hal turns to them, his eyes bright.

“Stake me,” Hal says. 

“What?” Tom asks. “No.”

Hal tries to hand Alex his stake, but she pushes it away. It falls from Hal’s hand and hits the floor, bounces once and then rolls out into the crowd. 

“Damn it,” Hal mutters. “Tom, you got out of Hatch’s last dream by staking the Devil. Maybe this time it isn’t these people that we need to kill. It’s us. That’s how it works. We reject this, we die here, and we wake up back there.”

“Maybe we do die here,” Tom agrees. “But it ain’t from me staking you.”

“Jesus, Tom, there was a time when I could hardly stop you from trying to kill me. Now you refuse?”

Tom glares. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I do refuse.”

“You see what’s happening,” Hal pushes. “These people aren’t real. Alex’s family, Allison. None of it is real. _We_ aren’t real. I’m still a vampire, you’re still a werewolf, and I’m sorry, but Alex, you’re still a ghost. Dying here isn’t a real death, Tom. Alex and I, we’re already dead.”

Tom shakes his head and Hal, frustrated, throws up his hands.

“But if dying here doesn’t mean anything then why are these people still coming at us?” Alex asks.

“I don’t know,” Hal says.

“Maybe to restrain us or something?” Tom suggests. “They ain’t exactly fighting too hard. Look at them.” Tom pushes one of the stakes into a woman’s chest as the woman just stands there staring. “Like staking day-old baby vampires.”

“Yes, exactly,” Hal agrees, his hands stretched out toward Tom. “Hatch wants us to stay here. He wanted to keep us distracted, happy. That’s why these people aren’t trying to hurt us. They don’t want us dead.”

Alex thinks this over and then nods. “You’re right,” she says. 

These people aren’t fighting back, but what would they do if she pushed Tom? If Tom punched Hal? If they make a move against one another, she’s sure suddenly that these pod people will intervene, will pull them away from each other, separate them. If they’re really going to go through with Hal’s plan, they’ll only have one chance to get it right.

“I think Hal’s right. That has to be it. Dying is the way out”

Hal nods and then turns to Tom. “Tom, come on.”

Tom shakes his head, still adamant. "No way."

It’s Alex turn to try reasoning. "You staked Hatch, though, right? And it worked. It pulled you out of his dream.” 

"Hatch wasn't human," Tom reminds her.

"Neither are we," Hal says.

"Yeah," Tom agrees. "But you can't kill the Devil with a stake, Hal."

Except they did, didn't they? The blood ritual and a stake to Rook's heart, or so they thought.

“It won’t kill me,” Hal insists.

“But you don’t really know that, do you?” Tom asks. “It might kill you, and what then, huh? The Devil would probably have a right good laugh about that!”

Tom’s eyes are hard as they stare at Hal, resolved. Hal stares right back, but his expression is softer, pleading, his fingers moving, urging Tom toward him. Tom shakes his head and stands his ground and this really isn’t the time for this. Alex knows that they can keep this up all night if she lets it continue. Maybe Hatch really has found a way to keep them endlessly occupied after all.

“All right,” Alex says. “What if one of you stake me instead?”

“No,” Hal and Tom say in unison, their voices firm. They don’t even look at her when they say it. 

"Oh, for God's sake," Alex says. She grabs her stake back from Tom's hand and before she can stop to think about it too hard, she plunges it directly into Hal's chest.


End file.
